Jake Bennett-Day, of Vino Gusto in Bury St Edmunds, takes us on a food and wine pilgrimage to Calle Laurel in Logroño, northern Spain

Northern Spain is used to receiving pilgrims. Thrice I have made the journey myself in the last year, all under the pretence of business. But on each occasion, I manage to carve enough time to pay homage to the patron saints of pincho.

Logroño is the small but swaggering capital city of the Rioja region, where the holy trinity is wine, meat and bread. And each visit to Calle Laurel (the main drag – a 200-metre long street filled with over 50 pincho bars) is a spiritual awakening.

If San Sebastián is the tuxedo of Spanish food culture, Calle Laurel is the rolled-up shirt sleeve with a Rioja stain down the front.

On an evening, hundreds of people spill out of the bars on to the cobbled street, so narrow in places that you could touch each side.

With so little space and a cacophony of noise, nobody is here for a romantic candle-lit dinner. Except, there I was, being swept up by the romance of it all.

Here, wine is less about reverence and more about rhythm. It’s the social lubrication and part of the evening’s flow. You'd better pace yourself, for each indulgent bite requires a new beverage with which to wash your gullet, before tossing your napkin to the cobbled street and moving swiftly on.

Some bars focus on tradition, others go full gastro-tapas, but nearly all manage to perfect the high art of doing one thing absurdly well.

First stop: Bar Soriano. You’ll spot it by the smoke curling out the door.

The entire brand is built on a single pincho – three fat mushrooms, griddled with copious amounts of garlic oil, speared with a shrimp, perched on a chunk of bread. That’s it. You’ll need three napkins and a change of shirt, but you’ll leave convinced that all mushrooms until now have been underachievers. Seven thousand of these go out of the door every week…

Around the corner at Bar Ángel, they’re also doing the single-pincho flex with grilled green peppers. Simple. Salty. Sometimes spicy. Like a culinary roulette wheel.

The wine to have here is a young (joven) Tempranillo, served cold enough to raise an eyebrow back home, but exactly right with the heat of the grill and the rattle of conversation.

Across the street in La Fontana stands a tower of Torreznos de Soria proudly on the bar.

Even as a hardened hedonist, these are a once-in-a-while treat. Strips of fatty pork belly are fried until crisp, then salted and thinly sliced into bite-size pieces. Heavenly, but heart stopping.

A few doors down, Torres Laurel offers a slight deviation from the single-pincho gospel.

Their wine list is a thing of real beauty: a tightrope walk between classic and curious, with everything from structured Reservas to giddy, gluggable jóvenes from tiny bodegas you've never heard of (but will now spend the next six months trying to import).

Have the bocata de calamares (calamari sandwich). Ask for extra aioli. Wash it down with a cool glass of maceración carbónica. Beg for forgiveness at the gym when you are back home.

Every bar on the street is worth stopping in, but if there is one to not miss, it’s at the very end of the trail; La Tavina.

With a fabulous selection of wines by the glass, and the coldest, wettest beer in the city, you’ll no doubt find something delicious to wash down their pièce de résistance: crujiente de careta de cerdo. That's crispy pig’s face… My ex-vegetarian self (and probably my doctor) shudders at the idea, but I'll be damned if I am missing out on this culinary delight. A thin sheet of deep-fried pig’s skin from the face, this is nose-to-tail eating.

How I long to be more Spanish. There are few places in the world I feel more deeply connected to than Logorño.

I hope you will visit if you are yet to make the pilgrimage. Go and experience the warmth and the deliciouness. Eat with your hands, drink with your heart and laugh like you’ve already had two glasses.

Jake Bennett-Day is co-owner and director of Vino Gusto wine shop, 27 Hatter Street, Bury Saint Edmunds IP33 1NE

Call 01284 771831

Visit vinogusto.co.uk