Sager + Wilde, Hackney

One bad mistake aside - a winter sun week in Arenal, the boil on beautiful Majorca's backside  - my parents didn't do package holidays. Where my childhood chums were deported to the building sites of the Costas, we were discovering another side to Spain. Drained by the drive from Scotland, my father had stopped off in Zarautz, a small seaside town 20 miles beyond the border with France. Nominally Spanish, the Basque Country - with its impenetrable language. beret-toting hombres, pelotta frontóns, and the added frisson of knowing that a separatist's bomb could go off at any minute - was, and still is, a curious place where 'full English breakfast with a free can of Carling' and GB car number plates are rarer than pink unicorns. Contemplating exuberant, colourful locals en familia in buzzy alfresco bars enjoying pinxtos (as we did not yet know them) as the sun set on surfers riding in on Biscay breakers towards a glorious sweep of golden sands, Dad decided we need not venture further. Zarautz would be a holiday destination we would return to several times after my parents' initial coup de foudre (or whatever the Basque term is). This year, holidaying in the French Basque port of St. Jean de Luz, I revisited Zarautz. Some smart new apartment blocks aside, the old place looks and feels exactly the same - the  children who'd been snacking on pinxtos all those years ago, now grown up with kids of their own, were hanging out in those self same cafes and bars. What has this to do with a new gaff in Hackney? I'll explain. Aged 9, hot chocolate and churros were my Spanish fixes. But  this year, I got to grips with Basque wines - "wersh (i.e. 'acidic' in Scots) gut rot" according to my father. As with Catalonian Cava, production methods have come on in leaps and bounds.I fell in love with ruby rich Alavesa riojas, French Basque Iruléguy, and summery young white, Txakoli. Light, slightly sparkling, with a crisp bite, it's produced in the lush Pyrenean foothills around Zarautz and the neighbouring commune of Guetaria. I was thrilled to find a Bodegas Rezabal Txakoli on a notable list at Sager + Wilde -  a handsome wine bar from a young husband and wife who clearly know their grapes. Tricked out in architectural salvage (Victorian cast iron and glass brick pavement insets as bar counter), all tasteful tonal chic, this is not what you expect to find on an East End strip where 3 for £10 mini-mart muck is the norm. Whether Txakoli is still available a fortnight later, I can't confirm: the offer is revised daily depending on what great bin ends the Sager-Wilde's have tracked down. All wines are available by the glass: from Kentish bubbles, via top drawer riesling and lovely light Loire reds to a Comtes Lafon 2007 Meursault at £15 a pop. Cheese platters, cheese toasties and charcuterie are what to eat at this admirable reboot of a once dodgy boozer. If you're travelling out East and spot Sager + Wilde; remember my old man's words "Why go any further?" 
193 Hackney Road E2 8JL http://www.sagerandwilde.com

Gremio de Brixton, Brixton

The first time I visited the Basque Country, I travelled there by ship. Alas, what  should have been a 36-hour pleasure cruise from Southampton turned into a re-run of The Wreck of the Hesperus. A dodgy hot dog gobbled down en route to the port had gone rogue on me. This, coupled with the tornado-swept Bay of Biscay Michael Fish's mob had somehow failed to alert me to, meant the traumatic trip took almost three fraught, sleepless, storm-tossed days. My boat (as a native of Bethnal Green or Bow might say) turned the same shade as my bought-brand-new-for-the-holiday and now-covered-in-puke, pea green Brooks Brothers button-down Chambray shirt.  When we eventually docked at Bilbao - Basque for 'bilious' I assumed - the rubber-legged, swimmy headed, churny-wurny motion sickness was such that it was still with me by the time our pre-booked itinerary demanded we advance to Barcelona, two days later. All of this to say, having managed to keep down nothing but one piece of dry toast, I would not discoverthe delights of pintxos, the Basque equivalent of tapas, until several years after my gastrodisastro maiden voyage to the land of berets, ETA terrorist bombs and exploding guts. For a taste of Bilbao in Blighty, head to new Brixton spot, Gremio. Run in conjunction with South London pub group Antic (Dogstar, Tooting Tram, Balham Bowls et al), it's the domain of proveedores de pukka pintxos, Gremio - señores normally to be found at the chain’s Graveney and Meadow pub in SW17. Cryptically located underneath a landmark church, the candle-lit Almodóvar-esque underworld - all Catholic iconography and matador imagery - is a devil’s playground for its early doors, cool, young, urban congregation. As well as boquerones, piquillo peppers with salmon roe, foie gras and oxtail meatballs and the likes, you'll find quality Spanish wines, sherries, cocktails, Iberian gins, cerveza and sangria set to a suitably sexy San Sebastian/ San Antonio de Ibiza soundtrack - with a bit of flamenco behaviour chucked in for good measure. If you fancy joining the union (as 'gremio' translates into in English) let's just say the Victoria Line is usually a marginally less rough ride than a P and O Line ship in a hurricane. 
The Crypt, St Matthew's Church, Effra Road SW2 http://gremiodebrixton.com/