My first trip to Spain was the year after my graduation from Le Cordon Bleu. It was the proper “post-grad” holiday. After experiencing the rigours of a culinary education, here was a country that showed me the wild possibilities of creating a dish and the fun that could be had while at it.

Many visits to Spain since then have proved that there is always something new to discover, and each revelation—be it the satisfying simplicity of market tapas or a single dish perfected in a tiny provincial town—is amplified when the experience is shared with family.

Of course, there is nothing my sister Margie and I enjoy more than treating our cravings as a compass. Both of our fascination with flavours and celebration of comfort food are what our mum inspired in us as we grew up watching her cook. It is also what guides us with the dishes and pastries we’ve introduced at our restaurant Wildfl our. We all appreciate a creatively concocted dish, which is what brought us to Barcelona recently.

While the city and the towns beyond have turned Barcelona into an arena for culinary innovation, we kicked things off with food at its simplest and most delicious. And where else can one taste the fundamental fl avours of a land than at the local market? First on the itinerary was a visit to the Boqueria de Mercat, where a bite at El Quim, named the number one brunch spot in the world, is muy importante. Besides a rudimentary order of jamón ibérico on tomato-rubbed baguette and a delightfully saucy chipirones (squid cooked in its ink) flickering with chilli, a glorious patatas bravas (potatoes in cayenne sauce) warmed up our bellies for the gustatory journey ahead. Thankfully, Spanish cuisine is festive enough that it accommodates bites both small and shareable. After forkfuls of El Quim’s staples, we left enough room to hop over to Pinotxos, another celebrated tapas bar in the Boqueria. Masterfully prepared café con leche by the charming elderly man behind the counter spurred a second wind, where we sucked the sweet juice from just-caught red prawns and mopped beef cheek sauce up with chunks of bread.

With food straightforwardly prepared, flavour and birthplace of El Bulli—Rafa’s is an institution, though it can accommodate only five tables during lunchtime before a long siesta kicks in. Still, one must dine here if only to witness how impressively the duo that runs it operates. The pixie-haired Rosa doesn’t just take orders in multiple languages, freshness stood out at our first few stops. For a sweet breakfast, there was Granja M. Viader. For over 125 years, the café hasn’t had to add much to staples such as its mató cheese with honey, light and almost flan-like with just a drizzling of honey to temper the sugary richness of the house churros.

Outside of Barcelona, the simplest pleasures are destinations in themselves. In San Sebastian, La Viña draws people far and wide to its cheesecakes, displayed on the counter with the browned parchment paper sticking out—each bite so rich and memorable that you’d skip visiting a popular pintxos bar such as Bordaberr to go home with one of the cakes instead. At Casa Julian in Tolosa, red peppers were served bubbling-hot, rendering them spreadable on bread and a piquant break from the grilled-to-perfection chuletón (large chop). Tolosa also has the largest market in the Basque country. In Roses—the she grills seafood to perfection, and then waits on each table while the restaurant’s namesake and owner tends to the stoves behind the counter.

Unencumbered by food trends or complex ingredients, each town’s speciality stood out and allowed us to appreciate more creative menus by the destination restaurants we lined up on this trip. Located four hours away from Barcelona; in Girona is El Celler de Can Roca, number two on San Pellegrino's list of the world's 50 best restaurants this year. From the ethereal design of the restaurant with its glass-encased garden at the centre, to the clever concepts behind each dishes, Can Roca most certainly felt for us like a departure from dining. The brothers Roca tell a story through each course: a pop-up place setting made to look like a seaside eatery presented amuse bouches that recounted a childhood by the sea, and a “tree” was placed on our table bearing olives fashioned from ice cream, ready to be picked and enjoyed.

In Barcelona’s Disfrutar (translated as “to enjoy” in Spanish), food engaged all our senses and challenged our notions of food types, such as in a pasta carbonara with penne made from gelatin or ice cream in the guise of red and green chilli peppers; just as fun-loving was Akelare, where one standout dessert was an edible yogurt bottle made to look as if it had fallen. At Can Roca, however, our experience wasn’t just about playing with food but accessing the earliest, most pleasurable memories we have of eating. This is emphasised at Etxebarri, which sits at the foot of the magnificent Mt. Anbato whose peaks disappear into the fog. Amid cows grazing and where little seemed to stir in its sleepy town, diners can focus on the food away from the madding crowd. Though the interiors are undoubtedly elegant, the unintimidating way a sommelier carried himself, dressed casually in Nike trainers, was an indication of what t o expect. At Etxebarri, ingredients are offered up true to form, retaining every bit of what makes them tasty, be it a slate of local sheep’s cheese and butter, or a white asparagus spear sliced open as a container for cep mushroom shavings. With urban distractions many miles away and flavours isolated so expertly, we could truly appreciate what was before us.

Still, it’s hard not to grin at how crafty Barcelona’s chefs can get even in casual environs. Wherever we went, there was cariño in the food—an affection, a sensuality that invites you to use your hands, to bite into a pile-up of ingredients and let it dribble down your chin, to let the sauce of a dish mingle with the entire plate—as in the squid ink of Bar Ganbara or the amazing fried eggs on shredded chorizo we devoured at breakfast haunt La Pubilla, frequented by Barca locals. While the first leg of our trip was an education in basics and the ingenuity that could come about from mastering them, the succession of tapas hotspots we visited on the second half of the trip allowed us to surrender to the merriment of Spanish food. It seemed there was never a loss for new energy and imagination, as tasted in bites like the airy foie tart at Mont Bar or a soup of strawberries at La Panxa de Bisbe (which has a revelatory gin-tonic made with grapes, by the way, and believe me, I am not a girl who likes gin).

On the day of our departure, we had eaten enough so that abstinence before our flight would have been the prudent thing to do. However, the Spanish often use the word tranquilo (calm) to assert the merits of chilling out. And so we relaxed our reservations and decided to end our trip with a bang by scooping up melt-in-your-mouth Crema Catalana at Ciutat Comtal and visiting La Pepita, a diner-like space with a most welcoming owner named Sofia. Since their splendid lunchtime menu was only on offer later in the afternoon (Spaniards and their late meals, go figure), we asked Sofia if she could accommodate us earlier since we were cutting it a little close to our flight. “Don’t worry, you still have a lot of time,” she said warmly. As we dug into discs of foie topped with swirls of white chocolate, the risk was worth it. However, Sofia’s reassurance didn’t apply to most everything. We knew in our hearts that there would never be enough time to explore all that Spain had to serve up—but we were going to enjoy these last few bites anyway.