253 replies to this topic

[The Viking]

Reading Dan's mouthwatering suggestions for tapas/pintxos I'm definetely looking even more forward to my trip next week; "The Viking's gastronomic crusade" of the region.

But: I'd love some up to date info on the following places:

Arzak
(Have been rather dissapointed foodwise since Elena took over, and unfortunately Juan Mari's memory and mental capacity seems to be suboptimal.. Stellar wine list though).

Akelarre


Martin Berasategui
(Disappointed paricularly with the service/attitude last time, but that was 3 years ago, any improvement?)

Kaia-Kaipe in Getaria for lunch
(Chose that over Elkano due to great selection of wines).


And before anyone beats me to it: Yes, we have already booked Etxebarri.

[insomniac]

We were at Berasategui late last year and the service was so spot on and hospitable, (especially the sommelier from Montreal) that I was almost expecting to be asked to pick out a piece of furniture to take away as a souvenir. No need to remark upon the amazing food

[Tom Roberts]

I ate a close to perfect meal at Arzak in October last year. This was my first visit so I can't tell you whether the menu has deveoped much from previous years but the execution was faultless. Jaun Mari was still in evidence but I suspect entertaining guests more than cooking.

Service was the only slight let down - there were a number of larger groups which absorbed most of the service attention.

[Pablo Carrion]

I ate a close to perfect meal at Arzak in October last year. This was my first visit so I can't tell you whether the menu has deveoped much from previous years but the execution was faultless. Jaun Mari was still in evidence but I suspect entertaining guests more than cooking.

Service was the only slight let down - there were a number of larger groups which absorbed most of the service attention.

I recommend the kitchen table at Arzak, if your party is not too big in number and it is available. The service we had in the kitchen was great and very friendly, with Elena Arzak giving us recommendations on dishes.

[The Viking]

we made our reservations 3 months out, requested the kitchen table (we're 7 or 9 pax, but alas the reply was that it was booked already. We've tried similar reservations earlier with the same negative results, and on every occasion thwe table's been unoccupied the entire evening of our visit...

[Joe Gerard]

we made our reservations 3 months out, requested the kitchen table (we're 7 or 9 pax, but alas the reply was that it was booked already. We've tried similar reservations earlier with the same negative results, and on every occasion thwe table's been unoccupied the entire evening of our visit...

Berasategui was one of the highlights of our trip to Catalonia and the Basque region earlier this year. A stunning room, impeccable service and amazing food. They had no problem serving me the tasting menu while my wife ordered a la carte.

The food at Arzak was almost as good, but with a packed dining room the service was harried and the pace of the meal a bit frantic for a three star.

Extebarri deserves the hype.

[Pablo Carrion]

Going there for a few days next month (a Fri, Sat, Sun) and want to know exactly where to go. Help please...

Is a visit to the likes of Arzak or Mugaritz a necessity? Is there a more informal place to get avant-garde cuisine?

Where for pintxos? Five or six meals' worth...

Any interesting places for a menu del dia that might be better than picking from the bar?

Any breakfast recommendations?

Any cheese / charcuterie / booze stalls or shops that need to be tried?

And unmissable bars?

All suggestions welcomed. Don't have to be fancy, ultra-traditional or tourist-friendly. Just good.

I also recommend Asador Bedua close to Zumaia for an authentic asador experience (make sure you try their tortilla de bacalao), grilled meat and fish is superb. And Etxebarri is of course well worth the trip (let them know beforehand, when you reserve, if you intend on eating the chef's menu)

[IrishAdventurer]

I've never been to San Sebastian (it's high on the list, I can assure you), but the impression I've gotten (I know a few people who have been) is that it's almost impossible to have a bad meal there...enjoy!

[Simon_S]

Can I ask, is it possible to have a good Pintxos crawl in San Sebastian on a Sunday evening? There's a good sporting chance I'll be there for a Saturday and Sunday night in early June, but I'm concerned that pretty much everything will be closed on Sunday. Can anybody put my mind at rest?

Saturday will probably involve Mugaritz/Arzak/some other blow-out. I'm assuming all of the "big name" restaurants are closed on Sundays?

Thanks for any help.

Si

[Lenski]

Sunday lunch (2pm-ish) is served at Mugaritz and I am sure that all the big restaurants are open for Sunday lunch. Very few restaurants are closed for Sunday lunch in Spain (Sant Pau is one, for example).

[pedro]

I'd say that Sunday is not the best day of the week to try to go to a first tier restaurant in Spain. Many of them are closed.

Sunday night in San Sebastián means Rekondo and its amazing wine list.

[Merseymike]

Recently went to both Arzak and Mugaritz.

Both are excellent. But also very different in style, ambience and atmosphere.

[Judith Gebhart]

Recently went to both Arzak and Mugaritz.

Both are excellent. But also very different in style, ambience and atmosphere.

Your observations are definitely worth exploring. What did you like about each of these major talents? Judith Gebhart

[Matthew Grant]

Once again I'm not sure if this is the appropriate thread for this but here goes (maybe it would make more sense to have a San Sebastian tapas thread and then threads on the individual restaurants rather than the jumble we currently have?)

We set out with a few places in mind and stopped at (quite) a few more just because we could. For anybody that hasn’t been to the old town before it is packed with bars, each piled high with pintxos but from what I’d read the best stuff is prepared freshly. Now not speaking Spanish is somewhat of a hindrance here especially as you can see plenty of stuff coming out that doesn’t appear to be written on the board. However, I was the culinary tourist equivalent of Rambo, my pockets stuffed with the weapons required for me to have a good time.

I came armed in one pocket with my Spanish food translation sheet which I have managed to trim down to fit on a single piece of A4 paper, not perfect but it helps. In another pocket I was armed with a list of approximately 80 tapas bars with a description of what was supposedly their “speciality” in English and also the Castellano version so that I could make a fool of myself to the Spanish barman. Other pockets contained Tapas maps, threads from Eg, articles from newspapers and pages from guidebooks. This was all well and good to start with but after a few Canas and glasses of wine (one of those pieces of paper had the word for one of those tiny beers, Zurrito, somewhere but I couldn’t find it) my pockets were a mass of scrawled notes and crumpled torn pieces of information, spread over half a dozen pockets and I could barely find my way back to the hotel. So here goes with what I remember:

1) La Mejillonera – bright and packed with people ordering the excellent patatas bravas, not sure what makes them quite so good here but without doubt the best we tasted with an excellent fiery sauce. Also funny to watch young American backpacker girls with huge beers, at least a litre looking at them wishing that they too knew the word Zurrito

2) Gandarias – We started with a very average croquetas de Jamon almost devoid of béchamel described by Rachel as terrible. However the Solomillo here was superb, nicely grilled, topped with a pepper and flakes of salt, really rare beautifully flavoured meat and all for something like €3. Fantastic

3) Tamboril – I tried to order a stuffed pepper here but only partially succeeded, instead of the fish I was expecting we ended up with meat instead which was fine but under seasoned

4) La Cepa – decent Gavilla with what would appear to have been pork loin, jamon, cheese and béchamel, again it lacked a little salt but as bar snacks go it beat the socks of a pack of Walkers.

5) La Cuchara de san telmo – the first of the new wave tapas places that we tried. Foie with apple jelly was excellent, a large piece of foie wchih had been cooked beautifully, dark and crisp on the outside perfect in the middle, topped with a little salt and served with an apple jelly. The only fault I could find with this would have been that the foie wasn’t trimmed too well, otherwise this wouldn’t have been out of place in a decent (London) restaurant. I’m sure I ate something else here as well…

6) Ganbara – Hojaldre de Txistorra – not so good as it looked, the pastry had a reheated feel to it, you might expect this but a lot of the pastry based dishes in this little bar were coming out freshly baked. A Plate of long green peppers appeared when I ordered Padron peppers, not sure of the name of these but very good all the same, simply fried in Olive oil and topped with salt. They also had great Gambas Rebozadas (spelling?). The Gambas Rebozadas were really good here. Great Prawns in batter here. I think we had had too much to drink by this time, that coupled with the great Prawns meant that we possibly ordered too many of them.



There were others as well but it all became a bit of a blur after a while, I remember plates of Joselito and glasses of Fugas back at Gandarias but it was only two days later as we walked past a dark bar playing loud rock music that we both looked at each other and realised that we had at some point, presumably the end of the evening, been drinking there as well.



That was day one, fortunately armed with the word Zurrito things became a little easier on the hangover front in the coming days. I haven’t got any notes on our second crawl but included some great crab tarts fresh out of the oven at Ganbara (which incidentally had a fantastic display of mushrooms including some enormous cepes (?) . The third, almost had me weeping with joy, I had a sequence of dishes that would easily have earned a star in London. In no particular order these are some of the other dishes I tried, its by no means all of them but each of these dishes is definitely worth a try if you want “nuevo tapas”. Some of this stuff was so brilliant I was compelled to take some photos, remember this is bar food!


1) Back to La Cuchara de San Telmo which had a menu that was deserved more than just a brief glance, a Black pudding Cannelloni was filled with a black pudding pure which would have been improved if it had remained coarse. Pato Confitado was exceptionally pale but did taste of duck, I’m not sure if this was because it was chicken cooked in duck fat or due to an albino duck, either way this was decent enough but not on a par with their foie gras of the first night

2) El Patio de Ramuntxo in Gros was our next stop and what a stop it proved to be. An outstanding Taco de Solomillo, again wonderful beef extremely rare, this time served with a green piquillo pepper sauce. Black pudding came served wrapped in a thin slice of pumpkin, it was broken up and there were a few pine nuts in the morcilla, a sweet apple sauce accompanied. Absolutely fantastic, you have to pinch yourself every now and again to remind yourself that you are in a bar.



Beef cheeks came in a meaty sauce that had been slightly over reduced however a portion of croquetas proved that they could also do the more traditional things very well. Then a Risotto of mushrooms with foie gras. Really great, they even kept the rice al dente., I wonder how the restaurant at the back weighs up? IMO if Tapas bars can win stars this place would definitely be in with a shout especially compared to London starred restaurants. All the dishes are around €3 - €3.50.

3) Alona Berri – I saw this described somewhere else (it was quite old) as a “neighbourhood restaurant”. Well it is, in the sense that it is in a neighbourhood and that the locals are popping in for a small bite and a quick drink. However the tapas here are more than that. Firstly the display is beautiful, each plate of tapas on the bar adorned with small flowers, a little chintzy but beautiful all the same and the owner obviously takes pride in the food. Awards cover the walls and a couple of their most famous creations are laid on display but actually prepared fresh out back should you order them.





The first was a complex dish and one that I can’t really do justice, for presentation alone it should get a star (the plate at the front in the picture below). We were enthusiastically instructed on how to eat it, first the strip holding the salmon eggs and some powders that I wasn’t able to completely decipher, olive and orange and one other if I remember correctly to be quickly followed by the cube of fish, peppers, aubergine, there may even have been a little foie in there? I was unable to work out the fish, I’m sure I could taste anchovy in the cube but the fish on top seemed to thick for that. The Combo really doesn’t sound that great but there was a pleasant richness to the dish which balanced well with the salty eggs and sweet peppers. An amazingly complex dish.

Another dish (the plate in the rear) consisted of a cube of seafood rice to be eaten first, followed by leek shoots, then a chiperones stuffed with peppers and apple followed by a shot glass of liquid which at first I thought was going to be a seafood stock but tasted more of a spiced onion broth. Again, excellent thought and presentation.



A millefeuille of potato mushroom and foie gras, the top crispy with caramel served again with apple sauce



A ceramic spoonful of confit duck came with an orange and vanilla sauce rich with butter.

Baztela of pigeon was so good that we had to order it again straight away, a simple take on pastille, pigeon delicately spiced with cinnamon and turmeric, the plate simply decorated with a rose petals and a gravy with north African spicing. Quite wonderful.



Additionally we ate Tuna which came topped with honey. Another bric wrapped dish consisting of a leek sauce, the pastry contained a mix consisting of a great prawn, shredded onion, avocado and carrot. Brandade was presented in a pastry scallop shell, topped with bechemal and a quails egg. It was all quite brilliant.



4) Narru – this was a modern bar with a tiny raised kitchen on show and an enthusiastic owner



Just one person worked the kitchen and turned out all the dishes on the left hand board, some really nice crockery in here as well.



They had a good selection of wine by the glass and he then recommended dishes to go with our wine – he looked quite thrilled to have some tourists in there. A potato ravioli with pork and leak was a surprise, the ravioli itself made with thin strips of potato an stuffed with the pork and leak. Oxtail stew came atop a layer of apple, A single prawn grilled in its shell came with a nicely flavoured and cooked seafood rice.

As you might imagine we were feeling a little full by this time so headed back into the old town, the walk obviously did us good as we managed to eat more at Ganbara before finishing with a plate of mixed Joselito products (the Chorizo was the best Joselito Chorizo I have tried).

A stunning days eating, unlike anything you could get in the UK.

Edited by Matthew Grant, 10 June 2008 - 10:04 AM.

[Andy Fenn]

Wow, that looks insane. Thanks Matt.

[PhilD]

In another pocket I was armed with a list of approximately 80 tapas bars with a description of what was supposedly their “speciality” in English and also the Castellano version so that I could make a fool of myself to the Spanish barman.

Matthew,

A few questions:

Do you have addresses for the ones you visited (or at least old town, new town type of thing)?
which were your top picks?

Do you know if they are open on Sunday nights (lunch at Mugaritz but will need to graze)?

Heading down for a day from Biarritz and keen to make the most of it. We have been a few times but I have a similar inability to order small beers so memories are very hazy....! Although I think I went to Alona Berri (New Town?) and it was superb.

Thanks,
Phil

[Matthew Grant]

For addresses try this fantastic site: Todos Pintxos

I'm not sure which are open on a Sunday night, you might want to book a table at Rekondo, the food is OK and the winelist/prices are incredible.
La Mejillonera, Gandarias, Tamboril , Le cepa, La Cuchara de san telmo and Ganbara are all in the Old town. The others are across the bridge in Gros.

I have a list of approximately 60 Tapas places including the apparent specialities in English along with the name in Castellano (it was cribbed from the site posted above), it was invaluable in helping us to order things that we would otherwise never have seen. If you would like a copy drop me your email address.

[BryanZ]

I spent three days in San Sebastian recently and am blogging about it on eG. The fun starts here.

Lots of barhopping, then meals at Mugaritz, Akelare, Etxebarri, and Alona Berri.

Lots of detailed pictures and information for those researching a trip to the region.

[PhilD]

For addresses try this fantastic site: Todos Pintxos

Matthew - thanks for the link to the site. We failed to do the tapas justice. First mistake was to think we could tour the bars after a long lunch at Mugaritz....even a palette cleaning ale was a struggle.

Second mistake: we chose the week of San Sebastians fiesta (culminates on the 15th Aug) which doubles up as an international fireworks competition. The town was packed with everyone trying to get into the bars...! However, the fireworks are superb, we saw the French display which was huge, lasting a full 15 minutes. They have a display every-night for a week, so worth timing a trip around this (I think it is an annual event), the displays start at 10:45 so plenty of time to do a tapas crawl and the atmosphere is really good.

[malacitana]

We ate at both Mugaritz and Akelare last week, and in our opinion Mugaritz wins hands down.
All the savoury dishes at Mugaritz were very good to excellent, except two big dissapointments: The flowers starter of fried, shaved artichokes and flower petals has the quality of a snack rather than a proper dish. There were tons of shaved, fried artichokes and very little flower petals, giving the impression of munching away on a bag of crisps. But who wants to eat a bag of crisps prior to a proper meal at Mugaritz? We didn't like the second dish (crisp bites of taro and coconut with a frozen stock of grilled sardines and sweet oil) much either. At first I imagined coconut and grilled sardine to go with each other really well, similar to the ajo blanco soups with coconut and caviar at Dani Garcia's restaurant Calima. The stock had a strong smoked flavour, almost identical to a dashi broth flavoured with shaved bonito flakes and was chilled by pouring it over a slush of ice. The overall effect was dash slush with two tiny paper thin disks of (not young) coconut flesh. Boring.

Mugaritz really excelled with the desserts. The pain perdu is the best version I have ever tasted. This year the accompanying ice cream had a new twist by infusing the milk it is made from with fig leaves. Great stuff. We also really enjoyed the pumpkin, coffee and boniato dessert. Pumpkin and coffee is a great flavour combination, and the boniato really strikes a harmonious chord with the other two ingredeients. We were also offered a complimentary dessert of excellent peach with a vanilla almibar and green almonds.

At the end of the meal we were invited to the kitchen, and the cooks very warmly recommended a restaurant in San Sebastian called IBAI. We tried to make reservations, but nobody ever picked up the phone. Has anyone been there?

At Akelare, the overall impression was a total reign of “form” over “function”. The dover sole and the red mullet dishes looked really pretty, but the fish was so salty that any of the other flavours on the plate were hardly perceptible (in any case, the fusili that came with the red mullet are only filled with homeopathic quantities of various sauces). We additionally ordered some plain dover sole for our six year old daughter. The fish , for which they charged an amazing €50, was way overcooked. That really left an unpleasant aftertaste. The peach dessert was a joke. Clearly very labour intensive, but precisely the same taste can be easily assembled at home by serving plain white chocolate, an ordinary ready-made peach puree, some cherries, almonds, pistachoes and an inferior pain perdu.

The fish at Elkano was another major dissapointment. It started well with a starter of very nice chipirones, grilled and with onions. Then we had a 1.2kg dover sole. Although the fish was certainly super fresh and perfectly grilled, I had considerable problems with the preparation of the dish. The fish arrived at the table on a big plate swimming in a fairly salty lemon vinaigrette. The waiter who carved the fish inevitably doused the fish in the vinaigrette thereby ruining it for me. I like fried crispy chili squid with lime zest. But why serve such a strong lemon vinaigrette with such a nice dover sole?! Puzzles me.

[drosendorf]

Since I had recent meals at both Arzak and Akelare, this thread seemed as likely a place as any to post them. First, Arzak. A more detailed description of our meal is here on my blog.

The tasting menu offered two options for all but one of the courses, so we got to try 13 dishes plus apertivos and post-desserts. There was a good dose of modern technique (spherification, fat powders, etc.) but for the most part it was integrated into the dishes rather than standing out as gimmickry for the sake of it. Here's the quick rundown.

apertivos - "puding de kabrarroka con fideos fritos" (scorpionfish mouuse w/ a crispy coating, apparently a take-off on a traditional Basque dish); lotus root chips w/ a mousse of "arraitxiki", some local fish; spherified wild mushroom topped with crunchy corn dust; crispy rice crackers with a mushroom filling; and a soup of black alubia beans topped with a frothy liquified white cheese, this in particular being the real standout.
manzana con aceite de foie - really nice, slices of apple topped with an "oil of foie" and then spinkled with sugar that gets bruleed.
ostras vegetales - two plump oysters bathing in a tartly citric sauce, with briny sea beans and capers.
bogavante con aceite de olive "extra blanco" - perfectly tender lobster tail with a powdered olive oil which gets re-emulsified tableside with a pour of a broth.
cigalas - langoustine tails, also wonderfully fresh and tender, with a yellow sauce with a whiff of vanilla.
"del huevo a la gallina" - another twist on the classic "Arzak egg", this one wrapped first in a translucent sheet of yellow egg yolk standing up like a cylindrical tent, over which is poured a chicken broth which melts the sheet and turns it into a sauce; the egg also generously flecked with flesh black truffle shavings.
rape bonceado - monkfish "bronzed" with a sauce that gives the fish's exterior a reddish twang, plated with a medium-brown jus over which another sauce is spooned tableside which produces beautiful iridescent bronze pools. Edible abstract-origami paper, also a brilliant bronze, accompanied.
lenguado con aceite de jengibre y pan de coco - sole filets with a ginger-y sauce plated with little discs of melon and a scatter of tiny sprouts. Pretty and elegant.
pato azulon con perdigones dulces - seared duck (not partiuclarly blue to my eyes) with shiny pink and silver spheres; the pink seemed flavored with sherry vinegar, the silver somewhat indistinct.
foie con tejote - seared foie gras, with a great combination of a corn sauce, little crispy chocolate bits, and little round pools of jelled raspberry sauce.
sopa y chocolate "entre vinedos" - chocolate spheres arranged in a triangle shape, with a red wine soup and a scoop of delicious, bright green basil ice cream.
esmeraldas de chocolate con laminas de rosquillas - another treat for the eyes, little hockey pucks with a dark green iridescent coating (made using spinach, we were advised), chocolate within, and powdered sweet crumbs in a ring around them. Thought the chocolate flavor was a little too muted.
bizcocho esponjoso de yogur - a fluffy sponge cake (probably using the Adria microwave method) with pools of coconut pudding, thin shards of dried pineapple, and little branches of chocolate, arranged to look like a coral reef. Beautiful and tasty.
dulce lunatico - little nuggets that looked like caramel turtle candies, but just a fragile caramel shell and gushing tart citrus liquid inside.

When they had heard that this was something of an anniversary dinner for us, they brought out a beautiful chocolate box encapsulating a little cake, a really generous and unbidden gesture.

Color was, as the notes above indicate, a recurring theme in the meal, and some of the presentations really were quite remarkable. Flavorwise, though a couple things were somewhat muted to my tastes, several were real standouts - the black bean soup, the apple with foie oil, the egg, the foie, the sponge cake.

The Arzaks, Juan Mari and daughter Elena, were tremendously gracious and charming, coming by all the tables multiple times to check on the diners, answer questions on the dishes and so on. The whole experience had a really pleasantly unstuffy vibe.

[Simon_S]

Does anyone have any recent reports on Fagollaga? I know it dropped a star a year or two ago, and obviously that's not a great sign, but I'm looking for a high(ish) end restaurant option that isn't uber-creative. I have nothing against the lotions and potions at all, I'm just looking for something a little different this time, and I keep coming up with the usual names.

Obviously Etxebarri is an obvious choice, but the menu listed on Fagollaga's website also appeals to me.

[pedro]

Does anyone have any recent reports on Fagollaga? I know it dropped a star a year or two ago, and obviously that's not a great sign, but I'm looking for a high(ish) end restaurant option that isn't uber-creative. I have nothing against the lotions and potions at all, I'm just looking for something a little different this time, and I keep coming up with the usual names.

Obviously Etxebarri is an obvious choice, but the menu listed on Fagollaga's website also appeals to me.

Have you considered Zuberoa? They lost one of their two stars this year, but I can assure you that they're as solid and consistent as ever.

[kathryn]

Can I ask, is it possible to have a good Pintxos crawl in San Sebastian on a Sunday evening?

Simon, the internet tells me that La Cepa is at (the very least) open every day:

http://www.barlacepa...les/indicei.htm

[Simon_S]

Have you considered Zuberoa? They lost one of their two stars this year, but I can assure you that they're as solid and consistent as ever.

This is good to know. Thanks Pedro, it's definitely on my short-list.

Simon, the internet tells me that La Cepa is at (the very least) open every day:

Actually, that was a query from a previous trip, and I can confirm that it's eminently possible to eat your fill of pintxos on a Sunday night!

[kathryn]

Ah, excellent, I somehow missed that was some 2008.

We're going to be there from Thursday through Tuesday in July, and I'm wondering if we're going to be out of luck on a Monday aside from La Cepa.

Edited by kathryn, 10 May 2009 - 09:49 AM.

[kathryn]

Alona Berri's hours weren't clear to me, so I emailed to ask. They are currently:

12:30-15:00 and 19:00-23:00, closed Mondays all day and Sunday evening

And Bar Bergara's hours are:

9:30 to 23:00 everyday, non stop

[TomHall]

I'm off to San Seb for my birthday in August and planning on a visit to Mugaritz and Arzak. I'm thinking one for lunch, one for dinner.

Any thoughts on which would be best to do for lunch?

[pedro]

If you're driving, Mugaritz for lunch.

[PhilD]

If you're driving, Mugaritz for lunch.

Cabs are not too expensive, and easy to get even for the return journey; and far safer than driving. Especialy as the Sommelier at Mugaritz is worth testing, she often gives very interesting recommendations.