Spain (and a little bit of France) · Early May 2027 (dates TBC) · 6 days · Limited to 8 guests · Optional Rioja extension

Full disclosure: I love pintxos so much I named my dog Pintxo. So yes, this trip is a little personal. Ever been somewhere where people love food so much they built private clubs just to cook for each other? Welcome to Basque Country. It's green mountains dropping straight into the Bay of Biscay, fishing towns wedged into the cliffs, and vineyards on slopes so steep you'll wonder who on earth harvests them (very fit Basque people, it turns out).

We'll start the way every good trip should: on a gilda crawl through San Sebastián's old town, beginning at the bar where the gilda was born in the 1940s. Anchovy, olive and a spicy guindilla pepper on a toothpick, named after Rita Hayworth's most scandalous role. Salty, a little spicy, gone in one bite… my favorite. Then we'll follow the anchovy to its source with a day in Cantabria, where Santoña's canneries still fillet them by hand and the gildas get very competitive. Back on the Basque coast, we'll hike the cliffs of Mount Jaizkibel down into walled Hondarribia, walk Zumaia's striped cliffs and Getaria's txakoli vineyards, and finish at a cider house: salt cod omelet, a sizzling T-bone, and cider straight from the barrel. Yep, you'll need a nap. We'll even pop over the border for macarons in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.

And then there's the txoko. After a dawn run to the port market for the day's catch, we'll gather in a private gastronomic society (members only, and the members do the cooking) for anchovies, garden tomatoes with home-canned tuna, baked monkfish, and pantxineta, all at one long table. It's the one night I'd build the whole trip around. Seats are few, and there's a Rioja extension for anyone who'd rather not go home just yet…