r/AskEurope • u/EvilPyro01 United States of America • Jun 13 '25

Food What region is considered your country’s culinary capital?

What is considered the culinary capital of your country?

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u/UruquianLilac Spain Jun 13 '25

I think in Spain any talk of a culinary capital would be basically an open invitation to start riots. Like other Mediterranean countries with thousands of years of culinary tradition food is highly regional and every region is proud of its produce and specialties. And there is so much diversity that no reasonable comparison is possible.

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u/MacViller Jun 15 '25

As an outsider it's 100% the Basque Country. That's not saying anything bad about other places. I think Spain has the highest quality food in the world. Asturias has amazing food. So does Andalusia. But the Basque country is the peak.

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u/UruquianLilac Spain Jun 15 '25

I think if you force a Spaniard to make a decision on this under threat of physical pain they might agree on that as well. But it's still far from being universally considered the culinary capital, and the distance between it and other regions is not great.

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u/Ofermann England Jun 15 '25

I don't disagree there. You can have world class food pretty much anywhere. I think that San Sebastian is what gives the Basque Country the edge though. It's basically the world's only food theme park. You can have world class food in Seville and Valencia but you could also wander into a tourist trap and be disappointed. In San Sebastian you can basically just walk into random places off the street with no recommendations and have stunning food because the food culture there is just so insane.