Spain's Best Tapa for 2026 Is a Bao Stuffed With Lamb: Jiale Pan Beat 45 Chefs With a Bite That Joins Asia and Castile

Spaniards take tapas so seriously that they hold a national championship for them. This year the 22nd National Pinchos and Tapas Competition in Valladolid ended with a win that says a lot about how European cuisine is changing: the best tapa in Spain is a bao, an Asian steamed bun, filled with Castilian lamb.

Forty-five chefs from all over Spain gathered at the Millennium Dome in Valladolid to prepare their tapas live. The jury was led by Janaína Torres, named the world's best female chef for 2024 by The World's 50 Best Restaurants. First prize went to Jiale Pan, a chef of Asian origin who lives in Valladolid and runs the restaurant Jiapan, one of the city's best-known Japanese spots, with nigiri, gyoza, dim sum and bao on the menu. A few weeks earlier he had also won the regional competition of Castile and León with this tapa.

A bite with a family story. The tapa is called "Doce/29", after the 29th day of the twelfth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, when families traditionally gather and prepare for the New Year. The idea of coming together is carried onto the plate. The base is a bao, the traditional Asian bun cooked by steaming. Pan fills it with a reduction of suckling lamb, an ingredient closely tied to Castilian cooking. On top goes a pesto of pine nuts from Pedrajas, a municipality in the province of Valladolid famous precisely for its pine nuts, with leek and shiitake mushroom ash.

In Macedonia, where lamb is a must for St George's Day (Gjurgjovden) and for every big family table, this is a good reminder that a traditional ingredient doesn't always have to be cooked the same way. Pan didn't replace Castilian tradition with an Asian one. He put one inside the other, literally. Which of our chefs will be the first to dare put roast lamb in an Asian bun?

Two more chefs made the podium. Second place went to Teo Rodríguez of the restaurant Trasto in Valladolid with the tapa "Bola del Mundo", and third to Juan García Domínguez of the restaurant Dólar Coreses in Vitoria-Gasteiz with "Volcán del Norte". Good news for anyone in Valladolid before Sunday, 15 November: the competition tapas are being served in the city's bars and restaurants at a single price of 3.50 euros, with addresses in the SpainIsTapas app.

The world title, meanwhile, stayed in Valladolid. Alongside the national contest, the World Tapas Championship was also held, which over ten editions has brought together chefs from five continents. Spain has a reserved spot for the previous year's national winner, and that was Alejandro San José of Habanero Taquería in Valladolid. He came back with a new version of his winning "Milpa", called "Milpa Meseta", and took the title of the world's best tapa before a jury headed by Mario Sandoval, chef of the two-Michelin-star restaurant Coque. It is a crunchy corn ring around juicy lamb cooked in a green tomatillo sauce, with cod chintextle, pineapple in tepache and caramelised pine nuts - Mexican cooking and Castilian produce in a single bite. Second place went to Thailand, to Alonso Luna Zárate of Ojo Bangkok, and third to Malaysia, to Kenny Gan Wei Kiat of Hachi by Kenny's.