Amelia

Amelia is a tasting-menu restaurant in the Hotel María Cristina on República Argentina street in San Sebastián, Spain. Its chef and owner, the Argentine Paulo Airaudo, named it after his daughter.

Airaudo cooked in Mexico and Peru before moving to Europe, where he worked at Arzak in San Sebastián, The Fat Duck in England and Magnolia in Cesenatico. His first restaurant of his own was La Bottega in Geneva, which won a Michelin star within months. He opened Amelia in April 2017, and it collected its first star at the gala that autumn; it now holds two. He has since added restaurants in Barcelona, Hong Kong, Florence and Bangkok.

Michelin sums up the cooking as creative, with Italian and Japanese roots, and Airaudo describes it as an Italian omakase built around seafood. The tasting menu changes often and is personal, with seasonal produce and a habit of bringing forgotten ingredients back into use. Lobster is cooked so that every part of the animal ends up on the plate, and a dessert puts banana together with mole and rum. The menu travels between Italy, Japan and Latin America in the same way the chef did.

Amelia has since moved into the Hotel María Cristina, opened in 1912 and named after Queen María Cristina of Habsburg-Lorraine, with a building by the architect Charles Mewès. The new room, by Javier Orduna of Biarkio Arquitectura, centres on a counter for 12 in front of the open kitchen, with two extra tables. Mariana Tapia runs the wine programme, and the list has been recognised by Star Wine List and Wine Spectator. Sitting at a counter facing the cooks turns the meal into a conversation with the kitchen, which suits food that changes from one month to the next.