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To check to what extent this unusual institution has revolutionized the world of gastronomy, you just have to go in and check it out for yourself. Because the Basque Culinary Center (BCC) can be an academic institution of the highest level but anyone can have access to this holy santorum of the culinary arts. Entering the charismatic building designed by the always imaginative VAUMM, in the form of an anarchic stacking of dishes, is not something reserved for a chosen few.
It is true that in its interior the Faculty of Gastronomic Sciences, attached to the University of Mondragón, that develops very cutting-edge research projects, that its employers, so many the most crashed chefs in the environment and prestigious brands such as Martiko or COVAP are architects of events with great media impact, but there is also a restaurant cafeteria where the only thing the visitor is asked is to reserve a table. If he succeeds, he will enjoy the work of the most outstanding students of the faculty, testing his prowess but also his experiments. And all this with San Sebastián as a backdrop.
On the other hand, the BCC organizes and increasingly, all kinds of courses, workshops, masters that although focused on the professional can interest all those foodies and crazy people for the cuisine that is in our country. They adapt to almost all the profiles and needs of the candidates. There are intensive courses of one week but the most desirable may be the workshops and seminars specialized in very specific topics.
How does sounding in the kitchen with Galician soul sound for a couple of days? Or investigate the secrets of vacuum cooking , master the low cooking temperatures, but also make the most of the products from the garden. You just have to check the BCC website to be seduced and end up spending a couple of fantastic days in Donosti, rubbing shoulders with kitchen stars but above all, with other people with very similar interests.
If there is ambition, even if remote, to start some kind of gastronomic project, however crazy and radical it may seem, the BCC is the perfect place. It has a program called Culinary Action and whose main mission is to support entrepreneurs through a start-up accelerator. In each of their two annual calls they select the best ten to spend two to three months in their space, with management and technological support.
Tabakalera experience
And to celebrate this tenth anniversary they have gone a step further that opens them even more, to society in general, with the opening of the LABe or Digital Gastronomy Lab in the Cube of the emblematic Tabakalera building in the very heart of San Sebastián. It is a place to experience and develop new concepts, products, services and gastronomic experiences with an important technological component but adapted to the real needs of the user.
But the best thing is that they have a fantastic restaurant with menus at 18 euros much more accessible than the one located at the official headquarters of the BCC. It is an opportunity to get into high cuisine at a reasonable price but also to all kinds of new technologies and at the same time enjoy the cultural heart of this city. In Tabakalera everything is possible. Endless activities are scheduled, from exhibitions, cinema, theater, presentations of the most varied but above all it is a place to meet interesting people.
To propose a visit to the BCC can be the perfect apology to return to San Sebastian, enjoy its multifaceted gastronomic offer but also approach the recently reopened Chillida Leku and follow the steps of this sculptor through the city or that of the architect Rafael Moneo that has several masterpieces in the capital of San Sebastian.
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