Snack bar ... chorizo is the speciality at Bar Lorenzo. Photograph: Norman Miller
The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Friday 7 August 2009
The piece below about the tapas bars of Logroño in northern Spain mentioned in passing the art collection housed in the city's Museo de La Rioja. To clarify: the museum is closed. It may reopen some time this year.
An Andalucían would say Granada, or possibly Seville. Proud, food-obsessed Basques would choose San Sebastián, no question. And Madrileños, well ... they think the capital has the best of everything - from food to football.
While tapas are ubiquitous in Spain, the question of who serves up the best is divisive. Granada, the spiritual home of the tapa, has a good shout, and it's also one of the few places where they are still offered free with a drink. Seville probably has the most atmospheric old bars, but not the best tapas, while San Sebastian's elaborate pintxos, as they're called in Basque, are delicious works of art.
But my vote goes to Logroño, the untouristy capital of La Rioja, for the sheer concentration of tapas bars in its medieval old town. Almost 50 are crammed into a single block about the size of four tennis courts. I counted 24 in 100 steps along Calle del Laurel, 13 in 50 paces along Travesía del Laurel. Calle San Agustin and Calle Albornoz complete the circuit with a dozen more. Hemingway treated his taste buds here during his Iberian travels, while King Juan Carlos has given them his royal seal of approval.
This concentration grew from old wine shops (envas) that once sold Rioja's wine in these narrow medieval streets. The wine business has now shifted to nearby Haro, whose historic centre has a tiny tapas circuit of its own known as "The Horseshoe".
With so many bars in so little space you might expect fierce competition, but Logroño, on the river Ebro and a stop-off point for pilgrims en route to Santiago de Compostela, has worked out a simple solution - each bar specialises in just two or three dishes. "There are no rivals here," says Lourdes Sainz, as I start a lunchtime progress along Travesia del Laurel at her brightly-coloured Bar Lorenzo, mingling with blokes on a booze-and-a-bite warm-up for a long Spanish lunch.
Lorenzo majors on simply grilled chistorra (chorizo with sweet paprika and garlic) alongside succulent lamb kebabs doused in a secret sauce full of contrasting sweet and sharp notes. The recipe, Lourdes explains, came from her husband's grandmother in lieu of a more typical inheritance: "There's no money in the will, just the sauce. That is your future." A brisk flow of punters testifies to its appeal.
Next door, Bar Soriano specialises in setas - wild mushrooms cooked in garlicky butter then skewered with a shrimp. Opposite, La Aldea is a shellfish paradise - razor clams (navajas) cooked to sweet perfection, juicy clams (almejas) washed down with a copa of bone-dry Barbadillo. Halfway along Calle Laurel, the wood-beamed La Tasca del Pato offers white asparagus grilled with a wrap of Riojan cheese, and txangurrito - a fishcake of crab and shellfish with a rich béchamel.
The source of all this produce is the Mercado de San Blas(eabastos.com), a modernist edifice whose two floors are testament to the Riojan larder - earthy ceps foraged from wooded hills, broad beans bulging in glistening pods, hot peppers, gleaming fresh fish.
The meat counters push the concept of nose-to-tail eating to extremes - I'm secretly relieved that veal snout (morro de ternera), traditionally stewed with tripe, onion, garlic and chorizo, and skinned pig's face (careta de cerdo) are both niche, home-cooked specialities I never got to try.
I do, however, get to taste embuchados - coiled lamb intestines - at En Ascuas (0034 941 246 867, Calle Hermanos Moroy 22), a crisp-linened restaurant famed for meat cooked in a giant, wood-fired oven. They are paired with a parsley and garlic sauce and I tuck in happily while watching the oven flames leap behind a glass panel.
Once, locals regularly cooked over outdoor barbecues of burning vine branches - a throwback I witness the next day at Bodegas Puelles(+941 334 415, bodegaspuelles.com), an organic vineyard about 30 minutes' drive from Logroño in Abalos. The air quivers with summer heat as I wind up through rocky foothills dotted by chozos, bee-hive shaped stone storage buildings.
Greeted by the owner, Jesús Puelles, we wander to the edge of a vineyard where vines sweep down into a lush valley. A pile of tindery branches towers above plates of lamb and sausages that are soon sizzling over the burning vines to provide a succulently rustic lunch on a cool patio, complemented by wines from the hillside where we'd cooked.
I while away another afternoon exploring Logroño's ancient core, sandwiched between the green spaces of the riverside Parque del Ebro and the tree-filled Paseo Del Espolón. The main street, Calle Portales, is lined with cafes and old-fashioned shops while, in the wide Plaza Del Mercado, I crane my neck to take in the magnificent 16th-century cathedral.
As well as ancient churches to please the pilgrims, Logroño has its share of cultural succour, too. Classical art stars at the Museo de La Rioja, housed in an 18th-century palace on Plaza de San Agustín, and is sharply contrasted by the Würth Museum, a striking contemporary art showcase that is only a few miles out of town in Agoncillo (served by free buses from Glorieta del Doctor Zubía).
On my final evening, I take in a show of Italian photography at the Sala Amos Salvador before returning to the tapas trail. At Pata Negra there's more art - a mural of bucolic pigs facing a bar where staff bellow orders for plates of meltingly rich acorn-fed iberico.
The streets are louder and busier, the crowd more diverse. Drawn by the sight of a huge octopus, I dive into La Universidad to wolf down paprika-smeared pulpo a la gallega (boiled Galician octopus) alongside chipirones (baby squid) while eavesdropping on some pilgrims.
The streets are louder and busier, the crowd more diverse. Drawn by the sight of a huge octopus, I dive into La Universidad to wolf down paprika-smeared pulpo a la gallega (boiled Galician octopus) alongside chipirones (baby squid) while eavesdropping on some pilgrims.
"Where are you going tomorrow?"
"I'm starting a two-day walk."
"Only two days?!"
I give thanks that I'm on my trail rather than theirs, and move on to Calle San Agustín. In El Soldado de Tudelilla, the guingillas (fiery green peppers) are so hot I swear the air shimmers in front of me as I quickly order some cooling Asturian cider, which the barman pours from on high while greeting new arrivals with a cheery, "Hola, chicos!"
At Bodeguilla Los Rotos, I encounter gulas, which are delicious elver look-alikes made with white fish (real eels are too scarce) and served with creamy scrambled eggs. I mourn the eels' fate over a glass of vermouth, while plucking tiny caracolillos (sea snails) from their shells with a pin.
My evening ends in Bar Sebas on Calle Albornoz where, assuming "sheep's ear" to be a euphemism for something scrumptious, I find myself biting into crunchy ovine cartilage. The man beside me watches with amusement as I try to clear the plate nonchalantly, then asks if I've been around many of the bars.
"A lot, but not all," I tell him. He nods and tells me of the local nickname for the circuit. "We call it La Senda de los Elefantes - the Trail of the Elephants," he laughs, "because of the way people walk if they've done all the bars." I thank him, then finish my drink and stagger into the warm summer night.
• Iberia (0870 609 0500, iberia.com) flies from London to Logroño via Madrid or Barcelona, from £231 return including tax. Hotel Husa Gran Vía (00 34 941 28 78 50, hotelhusagranvia.com) has doubles from €80 per night. Further information from the Spanish Tourist Office: 020 7486 8077, spain.info/uk
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