But who can tackle lab-perfect liquid nitrogen mojitos at home? Happily, visionary chefs like Adrià and Arzak and the Basque and Catalan culinary vanguard are only part of the story. Even the most experimental among Spanish chefs would be the first ones to acknowledge their debt to traditional cooking and to the luminous quality of local ingredients. It is this fusion of tradition and innovation that makes eating in Spain so thrilling right now. The divide between high and low, haute and homey, classic and iconoclastic, rustic and refined can be deliciously blurred. Owners of centuries-old tapas bars send their children for a stage (apprenticeship) at Michelin-starred meccas to pick up new cooking techniques. Avant-garde chefs, meanwhile, hang out at their favorite classic haunts, soaking up the rigorous simplicity of ingredient-driven cocina popular. In Spain, everyone eats at everyone else’s restaurants and the country is united in its adoration of food.
