Spain plays football the way it feeds people. With intelligence, patience, creativity, and an absolute refusal to be boring.
The 2026 World Cup proved it again. La Roja moved through the tournament with the kind of possession-based, technically brilliant football that had neutrals choosing sides simply because it was so enjoyable to watch. And when the final whistle blew and Spain lifted the trophy, something felt right about it. Not surprising. Right. This is a country that does certain things at a level that the rest of the world has simply accepted is different in kind rather than degree.
Football is one of those things. And food is another.
I have been writing this summer about the countries the World Cup inspired me to travel to, from Scotland and Norway to Japan and Argentina and the extraordinary underdog story of Cabo Verde. But Spain, the actual winner, deserves its own post. And it deserves to be a food post. Because this October, the timing for a Spain food trip is unlike anything we have seen in years.
Let me explain why.
In 1976, a group of young Basque chefs gathered in the small fishing village of Zarauz and decided they were going to change everything.
They were tired of French culinary dominance. They were tired of heavy sauces and rigid classical technique. They wanted to cook food that tasted like the Basque Country, that honored the extraordinary seafood of the Bay of Biscay and the vegetable gardens of the interior, that applied precision and creativity to ingredients that were already extraordinary without being disguised.
The chefs included Juan Mari Arzak, Pedro Subijana, Karlos Arguiñano, and a handful of others who would go on to define an entire era of global gastronomy. What they started in 1976 is now called the New Basque Cuisine movement, and its influence reaches into virtually every serious kitchen in the world today.
This October in San Sebastián, the culinary world is gathering to celebrate 50 years of that movement.
The 28th edition of San Sebastián Gastronomika pays tribute to 50 years of New Basque Cuisine under the slogan "The spark that lit the fire." Running October 5 to 7 at the Kursaal Congress Centre in Donostia, the congress will honor the chefs who created the movement, including Juan Mari Arzak and Pedro Subijana, alongside Martín Berasategui, who is also celebrating 50 years as a chef and holds 12 Michelin stars.
Internationally recognized chefs including Pierre Gagnaire and Michel Troisgros will attend alongside Peruvian chef Gastón Acurio, who cites New Basque Cuisine as a direct influence on his work. The 2026 program also includes a tribute to txakolí and cod exploring their deep historical roots in Basque identity, and the Arregi brothers cooking grilled turbot together for the first time.
This is not a food festival in the casual sense. It is a once-in-a-generation anniversary of one of the most significant culinary movements of the 20th century, happening in the city that produced it.
For food lovers, this is the equivalent of attending the 50th anniversary of a legendary concert at the venue where it originally happened, with the original artists on stage.
I want to make something clear before we go any further: San Sebastián, known locally as Donostia, does not need a special occasion to justify a trip. It is consistently ranked among the greatest food cities on earth and has been for decades.
With 18 Michelin stars in a city of fewer than 200,000 inhabitants, Donostia holds one of the highest concentrations of Michelin stars per capita in the world. That number does not capture the real picture though, because some of the best eating in San Sebastián happens not in the Michelin-starred restaurants but in the pintxos bars of the Parte Vieja, the old town, where counter after counter is loaded with small bites of extraordinary precision and flavor.
The pintxos culture here is genuinely unlike anywhere else in Spain. You move from bar to bar with a glass of txakolí, the local slightly sparkling white wine, pointing at whatever looks interesting. Anchovy on bread with a slice of hard egg. Bacalao croqueta. Baby squid in its own ink. Foie gras on brioche. The combination of casualness and quality is something that takes most visitors a full day to properly understand and appreciate.
Then there are the legacy restaurants worth knowing about. Arzak, the three-starred restaurant run by Juan Mari and his daughter Elena, has been at the forefront of Basque and Spanish gastronomy since 1897 in its current form and since the 1976 movement in its evolved form. A meal at Arzak is a direct line to the history being celebrated at Gastronomika this October.
I wrote recently about Madrid and its extraordinary food scene, and while Madrid is a world-class food city in its own right, San Sebastián operates in a different register entirely. Madrid has scale. San Sebastián has concentration. Every square meter of this city seems to contain something worth eating.
Spain won the World Cup playing football that reflected something genuine about the country's character. Technically excellent, deeply creative, completely comfortable in its own identity, and utterly unwilling to be boring.
The food is the same. Has been for fifty years and counting.
If you have been thinking about Spain, this autumn is the moment. The congress, the harvest, the Bilbao art program, and the general fact that northern Spain in October, with its mild temperatures and thinner crowds, is as good as this part of the world gets.
I would love to help you build the itinerary around it. Whether you want to attend Gastronomika, center the trip on Rioja harvest, combine San Sebastián with Bilbao, or build a longer northern Spain circuit, reach out and let's start the conversation.
The table is set. Spain is ready.
Here is where it gets genuinely exciting for anyone thinking about a Spain trip this autumn.
San Sebastián in October sits at the center of one of the most rewarding multi-destination itineraries in all of Spain. The congress runs October 5 to 7, which anchors the trip. Around it, the possibilities are extraordinary.
Before the congress: the Rioja harvest
The Rioja Wine Harvest Festival in Logroño runs September 19 to 25, with grape-treading ceremonies and the San Mateo feast on September 21. Logroño is about 90 minutes from San Sebastián by car and the harvest valley of Rioja Alavesa, with its hilltop medieval villages and cellar doors, sits in between. I wrote about Rioja in depth in my wine country travel guide and autumn harvest season is when this region is at its absolute best. Arriving in the Rioja a few days before the congress, doing a harvest visit or two, and then driving north to San Sebastián is one of the great food and wine road trip structures available anywhere in Europe.
During the congress: Bilbao as a day trip
Bilbao is 100 kilometers from San Sebastián and one of the most underrated cities in Spain. The Guggenheim Bilbao's autumn 2026 program is extraordinary, including a Jasper Johns retrospective and new installations by Pipilotti Rist and Steve McQueen opening in October. A day trip from San Sebastián during the congress week combines the food experience with one of the finest contemporary art museums in the world.
A real example worth sharing
A client I work with who is a serious food traveler, the kind who reads menus the way most people read novels, asked me last year to build a northern Spain itinerary around her one non-negotiable: a meal at a three-starred Basque restaurant. We built three days in San Sebastián anchored around a dinner at Arzak, layered in pintxos bar crawls and a txakolí winery visit, added a day trip to Bilbao for the Guggenheim, and ended with two nights in a small hotel in Laguardia, the walled hilltop village of Rioja Alavesa, for winery visits and the extraordinary views from the village walls across the vine-covered valley.
She told me afterward it was the best trip she had ever taken. Not because of one meal. Because of the cumulative effect of a region where extraordinary food and wine are simply woven into ordinary daily life.
That is Spain's particular gift. And October 2026, with the Gastronomika anniversary as the anchor, is the finest moment in years to experience it.
San Sebastián Gastronomika 2026 runs October 5 to 7 and marks the 50th anniversary of the New Basque Cuisine movement, with legendary chefs including Juan Mari Arzak, Martín Berasategui, Pierre Gagnaire, and Gastón Acurio attending
San Sebastián holds one of the highest concentrations of Michelin stars per capita in the world, but some of its finest eating happens in the pintxos bars of the old town where the combination of casualness and quality is genuinely unlike anywhere else in Spain
The Rioja Wine Harvest Festival in Logroño runs September 19 to 25, making a Rioja to San Sebastián road trip one of the great autumn food and wine itineraries in Europe
Bilbao is 100 kilometers from San Sebastián and worth a day trip during any visit, especially in autumn 2026 when the Guggenheim's exhibition program is among its strongest in years
Spain's World Cup win and the Gastronomika 50th anniversary land in the same year, making autumn 2026 a genuinely rare moment to experience the country at its most celebratory and culturally alive
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I'm Amneris, though everyone just calls me Neri. I'm a Pro Fora travel advisor and flight attendant based in Chicago with a deep love for culturally rich, food-forward travel across Europe and Latin America. I work with busy professionals and adventure seekers who want their trips to feel intentional, effortless, and genuinely memorable. From romantic escapes and solo adventures to luxury cruises and group journeys, I handle the details so you can focus on the experience.
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