Growing up on a farm in Pennsylvania's Amish country,
I never imagined I'd go from riding ponies to one-day flying planes.
Now, as CEO of Toomey, the world's top travel accessory brand, I'm always on the go.
But when I'm traveling for fun, I prefer a motorcycle.
To combine my business expertise with my passion for riding, I'm on a mission.
I want to explore how different parts of the world achieved excellence
in a particular industry, field, or even sport.
So please join me, Jerome Griffith, on The Road to Excellence.
Tourists are flocking to Spain's Basque country.
Some come to check out the stunning Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.
Others to surf the beaches in San Sebastian.
But mainly, they come here for the stellar cuisine.
The Basque region has more Michelin-starred restaurants per capita than anywhere else on Earth.
Its chefs are breaking new ground and hood cuisine.
Even the bars here serve up gourmet fare.
For this journey, The Road to Excellence visits a resilient ancient culture
that survived thousands of years of invasions and a hostile dictatorship,
yet grew into one of Europe's richest societies and a culinary paradise.
Before heading to the Basque country, I had to do some homework.
Turns out, the Basques might be Europe's oldest ethnic group,
believed to descend from the Cro-Magnons who roamed this area 40,000 years ago.
The ancestral Basque language, Yusquera, is a pre-European language that's so ancient,
its origins are still unknown.
The Basque homeland extends into southern France,
but most Basques live in northern Spain, where the Pyrenees Mountains meet the Atlantic Ocean.
It was time to head to Spain.
I arrived jet-lagged, but excited.
I'd soon be at Acalari, a restaurant with three Michelin stars,
the top honor in the culinary world.
Its owner is Pedro Subajana, a godfather of Basque fine dining.
At Acalari, I'd be meeting up with Gabriele Del Torquil, the CEO of Ducati,
Italy's iconic motorcycle brand.
Gabriele, how are you doing? Good to see you.
Good to see you. How do you do?
I'm well, thank you. Thanks for making the trip.
We entered this temple of gastronomy,
and quickly noticed the chef's cheeky sense of humor.
What's that?
Exhibit A, appetizers disguised as cosmetic products.
Oh, we need an explanation.
First, a gel of tomato and basil.
Okay.
And then...
Very nice. Nice. It's strange.
Then, a packet of bad sea salts that dissolve on the tongue.
With the paper?
With the paper.
Okay.
Very nice.
Tasty.
And then, a little cream.
Actually, a jar of local cheese.
Just blend it.
Very nice.
Chef Subahana had to explain the mouthwash aperitif.
Okay.
Something. Something.
Ah, fantastic.
It's gonna be nice.
I have to say, all that I've never had before in my life.
No, not this one.
It's wonderful.
Gabriele and I were then joined by Gabriella Rinelli,
a native New Yorker, now an expert in Basque food and culture.
I like this that they always have a sense of humor here,
and all their stuff is very playful.
The reason this food is so interesting is because it's not fusion.
It's deeply rooted in tradition here.
Is that fusion?
No, not at all.
In Basque, they have a great sense of their roots,
and of their traditions, and whether it be sports,
or music, or dances, or cuisine.
What's that?
This is what we call the fish and men net.
Fish and men net, here?
So under the net, we have oyster,
mussels, goosebarnacles,
and some clams, and scallops.
What I like is how they cook it.
Because obviously the fish is really fresh,
the quality is outstanding,
but they cook very lightly.
Perfect combination.
It used to be that young chefs went to Paris,
they went to France to study, and they're all coming here.
Coming here to train under culinary wizards like Pedro Subihana.
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Thank you very much.
We had really very good.
Outstanding food really.
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I'm excited to see the country tomorrow.
You'll be seeing a little bit more of the country.
Yes, yes.
After just one meal I was starting to detect
I was starting to detect what makes basque cooking so special.
Every ingredient was local, fresh, and superb.
There was exceptional attention to detail.
And the basques, while taking food very seriously,
didn't take it too seriously.
It's a little creamy.
So far, so good.
I couldn't wait to get on the bikes the next day.
Where are we again?
It's windy wherever we are.
It's windy.
So from here to here.
It looks very nice.
I hope so.
And we're going to see a young chef, very exciting, called the chef of the future.
Fantastic.
I'm right next to you.
OK.
OK.
Gabriele and I were off.
Our Ducati Multistraros would carry us down the A8 highway.
Would start on the coast, then head inland.
Our destination was Azur Mendig, a restaurant just outside Biltal.
There would meet Aneco Acho, one of Spain's rising culinary stars.
A claim for his scientific twists on classic basque dishes.
Just the week before he'd earned his second Michelin star and was named by an international
cooking academy, the chef of the future.
But on the way, I tried to turn on some slick grass and somehow let the bike fall.
Right on my leg, ouch.
I'm more annoyed than anything.
Important that you are OK.
With no mechanic, we turned to Fernando, our cameraman.
I'm just annoyed.
Good job, Fernando.
I thought I was going to be OK just going to the grass, but I hit the front grass and
that wheel just went.
Thankfully, Gabriele didn't blame me for crashing the Ducati.
He'd found the real culprit.
I need the coffee.
Our producer, who deprived us of caffeine.
We need the coffee.
Coffee.
It's your fault, though.
My accident happened near our destination, so coffee and food were close by.
It was a pretty good ride.
I was told Chef Atcha was preparing something special.
That something turned out to be an egg.
An egg?
That's why we came all this way.
But soon we understood all the buzz about Atcha.
This is gift for transforming the mundane into the magical.
Frustrated that other recipes for truffled eggs compromise freshness, he devised an ingenious
new method.
First, he takes a fresh egg and sucks out the yolk.
Then he injects pure truffle broth, cooking the egg from the inside out.
The final touch, a topping of shredded truffles.
Is it really bland in between tradition and innovation?
It's like a liquid ravioli that explodes in the mouth, but very natural with a product.
Bravo.
What makes you and all the chefs in this area be so driven to excel in your craft?
Atcha's reverence for both Basque tradition and innovation was typical of the chefs we
met here.
They also took fierce pride in the local produce.
Atcha wanted us to see firsthand, so he took us to his poultry supplier, where we met the
farmer's family.
Who is Lucia?
My doctor.
And that's an angel.
And his chickens.
He's a special kind of hen from here.
They look very healthy.
Very healthy.
Very hard.
Very hard.
Very hard.
Difficult to move.
If I open it, can you drink it?
You.
OK.
I was impressed by Gabriele's iron stomach.
She decided to pass on the raw egg.
Instead, I marveled at the skill required to cultivate this tough landscape.
I mean, for me, I think this is just very rough country and to be a farmer in this area
and have businesses in this area, you're doing a great job.
Where I grew up, I grew up on a farm.
It was all rolling hills, very easy to work.
And this, I think, is hard work.
For us, the real luxury is to be able to have an egg of this kind, or some very special
and very ours.
Because we know and know about the difficulty to get that product so good and to take it
to a restaurant.
And it is a luxury.
To have fresh food, it's a luxury.
For me, the luxury is now here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love that you have such a nice relationship with your suppliers.
You come over to their house.
You see, the kids, it's really different.
Yes.
I mean, come on, how often do you find two CEOs, a chef, and a chicken farmer working
through linguistic barriers to share business ideas?
On the ride back to San Sebastian, it struck me that the Basque networks of chefs, farmers,
fishermen, and other suppliers create a competitive advantage.
But as we got closer to the hotel, I was preoccupied by another thought.
A motorcycle had rolled over my leg hours earlier, and my knee was killing me.
Unfortunately, Gabrieli had to leave early.
Tell guys.
What I'm missing?
I need the coffee.
What's that?
You bet I would.
Gabrieli was gone, but I'd gotten an invitation to a gastronomic society.
And these private clubs, members, usually men, gather to cook and socialize.
Legend has it that these institutions began in the 1800s, when Basque fishermen, returning
home from long trips at sea, were banned from their kitchens by their wives.
I was given an apron and a high pressure assignment to prepare Merluza a la Vasca, a traditional
Basque specialty.
It was a rare privilege taking part in this authentic tradition.
It made me hungry to know more about how Basque culture evolved.
So I met up with Professor David Bumstead from the University of Deusto in San Sebastian.
Cheers.
Thank you very much for taking the time to be here.
And welcome to the Basque country.
Bumstead explained that to understand the Basques, you have to first appreciate the
importance of their ancient language, Yoskera.
It's a country that's existed for all these years without having ever really been sort
of an official nation state.
And yet it's retained this integrity, this uniqueness that it's got.
And that has an awful lot to do with the language.
Their unique, difficult language helped preserve their ancient culture.
So did their geography.
The Basque homeland is situated between the rough Bay of Biscay and a rugged mountainous
landscape, two natural impediments to invaders.
We stopped by a producer of the restaurant as a Mende, and it was a small farm set in
the hills.
And as we drove up and I looked around, I thought, you know, this is really rough country.
It must have been difficult for anybody that wanted to come and invade to get into the
country, especially in the hills.
Many armies came, including the ancient Celts, the Romans, the Visigoths, and the Vikings.
They came, they saw, but they didn't conquer.
Before these armies moved on, the Basques were savvy enough to pick up new skills.
From the Romans, they learned to grow grapes and olives.
From the Celts, how to cultivate wheat.
And from the Vikings, how to build seaworthy ships.
The Basques were the world's first commercial whalers, and some of the best sailors and
shipbuilders.
When Christopher Columbus embarked on his historic journey, he took an elite group of
Basque sailors.
And here's a fact likely to surprise you.
Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan is often cited as the first to circumnavigate
the globe.
Well, he wasn't.
He died two-thirds of the way around.
It was actually Juan Sebastian Alcano, Magellan's second in command, and a Basque.
He completed the journey in 1522.
The Basques seem to keep a really great balance between the two of coming up with new ideas
that they will get from other cultures, but also making it typically Basque somehow.
Most Basques that I know, they have this feeling that they no need to move forward, they need
to be innovative.
But at the same time, they have this love for their own culture.
Here in the Basque industry, you're not sort of a modern guy or an old-fashioned guy.
You can be the two things at the same time.
Even young people, they feel they desperately need to keep their old traditions alive and
hold on to them.
These traditions face their most serious challenge after General Francisco Franco claimed victory
in the Spanish Civil War back in the 1930s.
Un Estado totalitario harmonizará en España.
How did Franco and the rise of Franco and fascism, how did that affect Basque culture?
It had a tremendous effect on Basque culture.
He decided to, as much as possible, to annihilate their culture.
He illegalized the speaking of the language, writing in Basques forbidden.
For opposing his rule, Franco took even more sinister revenge.
On April 26, 1937, he ordered an aerial attack on Guernica.
It's a small town, but one with enormous significance to the Basques.
For centuries, Basque leaders had assembled in Guernica to enshrine their laws.
They had no way of dealing with it.
They had no air force, no anti-aircraft guns, and people were just being bombed into submission.
Completely destroyed the town, absolutely wiped it off the face of the earth, killing
about 2,000 people.
Franco would rule Spain for nearly 40 years until his death in 1975.
Miraculously, what soon followed was a Basque rebirth.
Did it bring about some sort of renaissance?
It was a huge renaissance.
Remember Pedro Subahana, the chef of Acalari?
He'd play a pivotal role in this cultural renaissance.
Did you have an idea at that time that you were going to create a revolution, or did
it just come about naturally?
I think it happened.
Subahana and a friend, Juan-Marie Arzak, set out to reverse the decline in Basque food
traditions during the Franco years.
Inspired by Maverick's chef, Pablo Cous, they headed to France to train in his kitchen.
That visit would alter the course of modern culinary history.
We had to do something to revitalize the Basque cuisine, based on three main points.
One, to recover the old dishes that had been lost.
Another, to make the current cuisine well-made, with good product, with the best, and with
the true recipes.
And a third, once we knew and inherited all that, to generate a series of new formulas
and new recipes, investigating us with freedom and making those new dishes.
Pedro and all that generation have transferred us to that knowledge, and we have the obligation
and responsibility to continue doing it, and for us that is a masterful teaching.
The local bars, especially in San Sebastian, also play a vital role in keeping these traditions
alive.
Before leaving Spain, I was told I had to go bar hopping, what the Basques call a chiquiteo.
My guide was Fiona, a native of Ireland, who came here for university and never left.
We're going to go on a little chiquitea today.
A chiquiteo.
A chiquiteo.
A chiquiteo.
A chiquiteo.
Do some, and have some pinchos?
Pinchos.
Yeah.
Can you tell me a little bit about what that is?
Basically, it's a pub crawl, but it's more civilized than a pub crawl because they're
just having a thimble full of wine or beer, and if you know your area, you know what the
best pincho are.
In the rest of Spain, they're called tapas, right?
The best one to accompany the drink.
For example, the one we're at now, they make a tortilla that people will die for, but only
for the locals that they know.
So if I know you, you get to eat.
Absolutely.
I mean, I have a friend who's well in, so we get to eat.
Very good.
Yeah.
Low supply.
High demand.
Absolutely.
Well, exactly.
And that's the way they keep it.
It's sort of, if you like, that's how they kept it.
It looks wonderful.
You know, it's a labor of love.
Now I can say that I have had the tortilla.
In Nestor.
In Nestor.
Here.
The test of a good cook here, like a home cook, is making the traditional dishes and
doing them well.
So there's huge competition.
That's really fantastic.
I can see why people come and want to get their piece of tortilla.
And there's not that many to go around.
No.
It was time to leave this fascinating part of Spain.
I'd learned that a key ingredient in the Basque recipe for culinary excellence is their
ability to balance characteristics you'd expect to be in conflict.
The chefs here are incredibly competitive, yet also cooperative.
The Basques preserve their traditions, but constantly look abroad for ways to invigorate
them.
This is a vibrant culture, an enviable standard of living, and some of the world's best food.
As for me, my knee's feeling better already.
I'll be back on my motorcycle for the next journey on the road to excellence.
Thank you.
Thank you.
