Paulo Airaudo (Amelia**, Donostia) is a "Basque chef who is not Basque", as Ignacio Medina introduced him. The Cordovan (from Argentina) has restaurants and stars halfway around the world, but today he has come to the Kursaal to talk about products and traditional Basque cuisine, which is what he does above all in his restaurant Ibai (Donostia), which he reopened a few months ago and where the weight of tradition plays an important role.

I knew haute cuisine, but I didn't have the slightest idea about Basque cuisine. At Ibai we try to refine traditional Basque cuisine. Why do we have to cook hake in sauce? We have to ask ourselves this question, because perhaps it would be better to steam it and finish it off in a sauce,' he explained, as a prelude to his presentation, which consisted of three recipes.

The first was lobster salpicón. In this recipe, 'we sought a very specific texture with the lobster, which arrives alive, is killed, the tail is frozen and then lightly vacuum-cooked with lobster oil'. Meanwhile, the claw is boiled. With this formula, "we try to respect a recipe used in the Ibai, although we make the coral emulsion in our own way. Our vinaigrette is more traditional, with an Italian vinegar infused with plum stones. When in season, we accompany it with some mini acid tomatoes, the perfect counterpoint. It's a simple, traditional dish," says Airaudo.

The second dish was txipirones en su tinta (baby octopus in its own ink): "We are following tradition with this," he warned. The squid are caught this morning and are "a very noble product". The sauce takes time, but it is pure and simple tradition: lots of onion, a little garlic and green pepper and a tomato that we bring directly from Naples, which is a little sweeter. We season this traditional sauce with roasted lemon juice and a little vinegar".

The txipiron are hooked and, when cleaned, they retain their ink. Three minutes is enough to get them ready," says the chef, before recalling that "José Juan Castillo always told me that it was very important to poach the onion in time to remove its bitterness. The Argentinian defined it as a "simple, ugly, but tasty dish".

The third dish was hake in sauce. This fish, which is hooked, "is increasingly difficult to find because of anisakis, so we have to freeze it and also change the cooking point. We look for hake to find it without anisakis, but it is not from here'. Airaudo opens the clams in a pan with a splash of txakoli, reserving their juice for the green sauce: "We steam the hake and the green sauce is traditional with garlic, parsley and chilli". It is a recipe with "a very stable product, which is what you are looking for in a restaurant".

Airaudo talked about prices ('We're not an NGO'), clarified that Ibai is a new company today, asked why we should cook like our grandmothers when they didn't cook like theirs, and also gave a brief overview of a career that has taken him, with successes and failures, to several countries. His next adventure will be in Buenos Aires.