Martin Berasategui

Martín Berasategui learned to cook in his parents' San Sebastián tavern, trained through his teens in France, and in 1993 opened his own restaurant in the hills of Lasarte-Oria, just outside the city. The first star came six months later, the second in 1996, the third in 2001 — and he's held all three ever since, the bedrock of a global empire that has made him the most Michelin-starred chef in Spain. The tasting menu is laid out chronologically, each dish marked with the year he created it, so dinner becomes a walk through four decades of one of modern cooking's most restless minds; the 1993 millefeuille of smoked eel, foie gras and green apple is the dish everyone comes for, and it's as good as its reputation. The room is calm and light, with windows over the green Basque countryside. He calls himself a "conveyor of happiness." Spend an evening here and you'll see why.