You could wander into almost any of the 50-plus tapas bars in San Sebastián's old town and eat incredibly well. Tapas, or pintxos as the Basques call them, are an institution here. The only problem is knowing which place to try first . . . so I sought some professional advice.
Juan Mari Arzak and his daughter Elena are the chefs of Arzak (Alto de Miracruz 21, 00 34 943 27 84 65, arzak.es), the pioneering restaurant of nueva cocina vasca. A perennial on the list of the world's best 10 restaurants, it boasts three of the city's 13 Michelin stars - more per capita than any other city in the world.
Arzak is still the daddy. The place retains the charm of a family-run restaurant while offering all the nouvelle bells and whistles you'd expect on a €112 experimental tasting menu: pina colada sauce made with dry ice, freeze-dried honeycomb blow-torched to a liquid at the table and even lettuce foam - all tasted absolutely sensational. It was worth every penny . . . but where to go for €1.50 pintxos?
It's obviously a question Elena gets asked often as her reply was to hand me a typed list of some of her favourites.
The locals navigate them by way of the txikiteo, a bar crawl where you stop and eat just one pintxo, el especialidad del casa, in each. Every bar you walk into has so much great food on display - gambas, roasted green and red peppers, perfect tortilla, white anchovies and baby octopus glistening with olive oil, cheeses, hams, stuffed chilies - there's hardly room to put your glass down. It looks like the best buffet you'll ever see, but the really good stuff, the signature dishes for which each bar is famous, are cooked to order out back. Having tried every pintxos bar on Elena's list, I couldn't choose a favourite between these four.
Fishy ones: Bar Txepetxa (C/Pescadería 5)
On the bar here are 15 ornate ceramic replicas of the house speciality - anchovy pintxos. Order the one you fancy and they are prepared freshly; silvery fillets marinated (not salted) in a secret family recipe and arranged with sushi-type precision on a warm slice of baguette and topped with everything from spider crab, sea urchin roe and black olive pâte to redcurrants. I couldn't leave before sampling seven of them.
Modern ones: La Cuchara de San Telmo (C/31 de Agosto 28, by the museum)
The 10 or so made-to-order offerings that come out of the open kitchen in this no-nonsense rock'n'roll bar are bonsai variations on Basque classics that wouldn't be out of place on a gourmet tasting menu. "We run the kitchen like a restaurant," says chef Álex Montiel, "but you are in a bar, so you can have a sophisticated dish like foie gras in parsley sauce, cannelloni with black pudding or stuffed squid for €3."
Hot ones: Casa Gandarias (C/31 de Agosto, 25)
The house specials, scrawled on the blackboard, included solomillo, a perfectly cooked bijou steak sandwich, and seared foie with redcurrants (they use "foie" like butter here). I also tried two delicious pintxos nuevos: crepe de bacalao with a light parsley sauce and a duo of soft cheese and smoked bacon.
Cold ones: Bar Patio de Ramuntxo (C/Peña y Goñi 10)
A regular winner at San Sebastián's pintxo of the year competition (they take it that seriously). Sublime creations include marinated tuna with chilli and vinaigrette or wasabi, and a foie with wild mushrooms wrapped in a thin layer of bread.
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