Spain's Culinary Heritage
from $15,365 per person
Spain guide
Culinary and wine tours in Spain
Spain's tables, markets and wine country, each region by its own food, arranged around your days.
By Ramin Jafari · Facts checked
Our culinary and wine tours are private journeys built around Spain’s tables: pintxos and three-star tasting menus in San Sebastián, Barcelona’s market and a cooking class, the wineries of Rioja and the Ribera del Duero, sherry in Jerez and olive oil in Jaén, Madrid’s taverns and Mallorca’s wine estates. We reserve the tables, arrange the tastings, the guides and the chefs, and drive you between them. Spain eats by region, and the places themselves are in our guide to Spanish gastronomy and our wine regions guide.
At a glance
- San Sebastián
- 19 MICHELIN Stars within 25 km of the city in the 2026 Guide
- Barcelona
- Four Three-Star restaurants in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide
- The wine
- Rioja and the Ribera, cava in the Penedès, sherry in Jerez
- Olive oil
- Jaén, the world’s largest producer, with 66 million olive trees
- UNESCO
- The Mediterranean diet, with Spain among its seven countries, 2013
The regions
Where we take you
Spain cooks by region, and each has its own tables, markets and wine. Six we plan most often, and what we arrange in each.
The Bay of Biscay
San Sebastián and the Basque Country
- Three Stars
- Arzak, Akelarre and Martín Berasategui, 2026
- To drink
- Txakoli from Getaria, cider from Astigarraga
An evening through the pintxo bars of the Parte Vieja with a guide, one or two at each bar and a glass of txakoli. Then the tables in and around the city: three restaurants with three MICHELIN Stars, Arzak, Akelarre and Martín Berasategui, and Mugaritz with two, which we reserve as soon as your dates are fixed. Along the coast, a txakoli winery at Getaria, and a cider house at Astigarraga.
The city, the Penedès and the Priorat
Barcelona and Catalonia
- Three Stars
- ABaC, Cocina Hermanos Torres, Disfrutar, Lasarte
A morning at the Boqueria on La Rambla with a chef, then a class in Catalan cooking with what you bought, in a private kitchen. The city has four restaurants with three MICHELIN Stars, and we reserve them first. Inland, a day among the cava houses of Sant Sadurní d’Anoia in the Penedès, or among the slate slopes of the Priorat, with tastings at the wineries that receive guests.
The Ebro and the Duero
Rioja and the Ribera del Duero
Days among the bodegas that receive guests, two or three a day with a driver, a long lunch between them and the winemaker to host a tasting where one is free; nights in a hotel among the vines. How we plan the wine country, with the hotels, is on our wine travel page, and the tastings in Rioja on our wine tasting in Rioja page.
Jerez, Jaén and Seville
Andalusia
In Jerez, a day among the sherry bodegas with a guide, from the dry fino to the sweet Pedro Ximénez. In Jaén, among the province’s 66 million olive trees, a visit to a mill and a tasting of its oil. In Seville, an evening between the taverns and tapas bars of the old town with a sommelier, or a chef where one is available.
The capital and the Ribera to the north
Madrid
The vermouth hour, at about one, in a classic taberna; cocido madrileño for lunch, or a table at Botín; a tasting menu at one of the city’s starred restaurants in the evening. Madrid has its own wine, the D.O. Vinos de Madrid, and the Ribera del Duero is a day out to the north, with a driver; from Toledo, a vineyard among the city’s cigarrales and the Garnacha of the D.O. Méntrida, half an hour north.
Palma and the wine country inland
Mallorca
Palma’s markets in the morning, the Olivar and Santa Catalina, for sobrassada, ensaimadas and the island’s olive oil and almonds; a tasting at a family estate of the D.O. Binissalem; a morning on one of the island’s organic estates, through the olive grove or the vines with the people who farm them, and a picnic of island produce; lunch on board a private boat among the coves; and VORO, the island’s only restaurant with two MICHELIN Stars.
What we arrange
Each private, on request and subject to availability:
- The tables. The starred restaurants reserved first, as soon as your dates are fixed, and the old taverns and tapas bars around them.
- Tastings at the wineries that receive guests, in Rioja, the Ribera, the Priorat, the Penedès or Jerez, with the winemaker where one is free to host.
- Markets and kitchens. A morning at the Boqueria in Barcelona or the Mercado de Triana in Seville with a chef, then a class in the region’s cooking, paella to gazpacho, with what you bought.
- Tapas with a guide, an evening between the bars: jamón ibérico, anchovies, tortilla and the wine to go with each.
- Olive oil at a mill in Jaén, or Mallorca’s own, and a picnic among the vines on a fine day.
- A driver between the cities and the wine country, with a guide on the way where you would like one.
We plan a single region in depth, or several in one journey.
Itineraries
Food and wine journeys
Each a starting point, shaped around you.
Our Spain’s Culinary Heritage runs eleven days from San Sebastián through La Rioja and the Duero Valley to Madrid: pintxos and a cider house, the wineries, and Madrid’s markets. Two more we plan often: coast, wine country and capital, a starred table in the Basque Country, a stay among the vines of the Ribera and Madrid’s taverns; and a week in Catalonia, Barcelona’s kitchens with the Priorat and the Penedès. With it, three more of our journeys take in the same regions:
The Grand Spanish Tour
from $27,279 per person
Catalonia Experience
from $13,242 per person
Luxury Spanish Honeymoon
from $16,811 per person
When to go
The seasons at the table
Spring and autumn suit almost the whole country at once, from April to June and from September to October. Summer is the season for the coast and its seafood, for San Sebastián and the islands, and in Galicia for Cambados’s Albariño festival in early August. Autumn is the harvest: September and October in Rioja and the Ribera, from August in Jerez, and Binissalem’s harvest festival on Mallorca through September; we reserve those weeks first. Winter brings Jaén’s new olive oil, celebrated in November, Madrid’s cocido at its best on a cold day, and from mid-November to mid-March the black truffle: a morning with a grower and the dogs in a truffle orchard, in Navarra, Soria or Catalonia’s Osona, with a tasting to finish.
Region by region, see our best time to visit Spain.
Questions
Questions we are asked
Can I combine food experiences with cultural tours?
Often. Many of our journeys pair the tables with the monuments: Gaudí in Barcelona, the Alhambra in Granada, or flamenco in Seville. See our private architecture and cultural tours.
Are the tours suitable for families, or for adults only?
Either. The tastings and the long tasting menus suit adults best; for a family we choose cooking classes, markets and a paella children can help make. See our luxury family trips to Spain.
More Spain guides
- A guide to Spanish gastronomy
Spain's food and drink, region by region, from tapas to sherry.
- The best wine regions of Spain
The wine regions worth a journey, from Rioja to the Priorat.
The city food guides: San Sebastián, Barcelona, Seville, Madrid and Mallorca. The destinations: San Sebastián, Seville, Madrid and Mallorca; and our luxury travel guide to Spain.
Plan your Spain trip
Tell us your dates and who is travelling. Everything else we can work out together.
Plan your Spain tripOur Spain page
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