The next edition of San Sebastian Gastronomika – Euskadi Basque Country is already underway and will be held from 6 to 8 October at the Kursaal Conference Centre under the title ‘Tradition and Regeneration’.
It will be the 27th edition of the oldest gastronomy congress, and the four awards of the event will also be presented: the Tribute Award will go to the British chef Heston Blumenthal; the Golden Gueridón will be shared by the Master of Wine Almudena Alberca and the oenologist Sara Pérez; the Pau Albornà i Torras Award for Gastronomic Journalism will go to the gastronomic critic José Carlos Capel, and the Tabernero Mayor will go to Mariano García, from the Donald restaurant in Seville. Gastronomika will also host the second edition of the Congress of Taverns and Restaurateurs, the World Championship of Tripe Cooking and the National Championships of Russian Salad, T-Bone Steak and Fish Soup.
San Sebastian Gastronomika – Euskadi Basque Country will continue to have an area dedicated to the trade fair. Companies interested in presenting their products and innovations at the conference can send their requests and queries to info@sansebastiangastronomika.com. Anyone wishing to attend the conference can register at www.sansebastiangastronomika.com.
San Sebastian Gastronomika – Euskadi Basque Country 2025 will be dedicated to the two most powerful trends in gastronomy at the moment: the revision or return to tradition and the commitment to regeneration in order to overcome the concept of sustainability, which has become hackneyed and inadequate and has lost strength because it has been exploited without sufficient real change.
The director of San Sebastian Gastronomika – Euskadi Basque Country, Benjamín Lana, explains that ‘when we talk about regeneration, we are proposing a model of active improvement of these damaged ecosystems, communities and also gastronomic cultures. We are moving from how we can avoid causing damage to how we can make a positive contribution. The idea is to see how we can all bet on a model of positive impact.
Another important theme in this edition of Sebastian Gastronomika – Euskadi Basque Country is the sea. In recent years, the overexploitation of species has led chefs and suppliers to look for more sustainable alternatives and to increase the use of short-life fish. There has also been an increase in collaboration between chefs and artisanal fishermen to source responsibly caught products, as well as consumer interest in trying new flavours and knowing the origin of seafood. The director of the congress says: “We’re going to talk about the history and the story of the sea, we’re going to talk about exchanges and loans between Cantabrian cultures, we’re going to talk about seaweed, we’re going to talk about super blue foods and also about sustainable aquaculture. There will be room for all the restaurants, all the chefs and all the producers. We are going to put a lot of focus on the world of producers.
