#garoines

Every winter from about mid-January through mid-March, the small town of Palafrugell, in the Catalonia region of Spain, celebrates the sea urchin with a foodie festival, “La Garoinada.” Several hotels and restaurants offer packages and set menus for those wanting to experience the garoines (Catalan for “sea urchin”) during the height of its season.

Last year we made the excursion to Spain’s northeast coast to taste and appreciate this long-time delicacy at one of La Garoinada’s participating restaurants, Xadó. Like all restaurants, Xadó had a set menu that featured an aperitif, a dozen garoines, a main course native to the region and a dessert. The complete meal was €35 and was right in line with the other restaurants that charged anywhere from €35 to €40.

Xadó was a quaint restaurant tucked inside a small shopping center. It was lunchtime and relatively quiet. While the dining room had ample room, only about three other tables were filled and we were the only ones ordering off the La Garoinada menu.

The sea urchins native to the region are commonly known as the purple sea urchin. The tongues are quite smaller than varieties from Maine, California and Japan and had a milder and less briny taste. While not my favorite, it was still an amazing experience to get a dozen urchins, straight-up, like how you might order a dozen oysters.

Getting there:

Palafrugell is about a 1.5 hour drive from Barcelona without traffic.

We came from Girona (a really awesome nearby city with excellent food), which was about an hour drive (there are mountains all over this region making driving a bit slower).