Those Basques love their food. Mark Kurlansky knows that and so does chef Jose Garces. Philadelphia just had dinner at his restaurant Tinto (yes, the ur-popular Basque small plates restaurant where you’re finally able to get a seat within a week’s reservation) and found some rather good food:
At Tinto, Garces builds the small-plates menu around specialties of the Basque region, where the Bay of Biscay provides the seafood, and the Pyrenees range supports the sheep and goats that provide meat and dairy. The favored pepper is the medium-hot espelette, which Garces uses liberally in its dried form — with crabmeat simmered in tomato-shellfish jus; to punch up a chilled lump crabmeat and avocado topping for one of the montaditos, the small open-faced sandwiches; and in the combination of country ham, fried egg and bell peppers known in both France and Spain as pipérade.
Those Basques love their food. Mark Kurlansky knows that and so does chef Jose Garces. Philadelphia just had dinner at his restaurant Tinto (yes, the ur-popular Basque small plates restaurant where you’re finally able to get a seat within a week’s reservation) and found some rather good food:
