Best Pintxos In San Sebastián

Lucy goes back to the Basque culinary pilgrimage destination and has another stab at liking the place .

It’s really, really frowned upon for a food writer to say anything negative about San Sebastián. This coastal city in the Basque Country, in the North of Spain is one of the most sacred sites of pilgrimage for foodies for two reasons: the large number of Michelin-starred restaurants in the area and the local street food scene. It is famous for Pintxo bars, small restaurants where people gather to drink beer, cider, sparkling wine or vermouth, always accompanied by small snacks.

I visited the city about 8 years ago to celebrate a big wedding anniversary. We went to Mugaritz - a restaurant in the middle of suspiciously green hills (the weather is absolutely dreadful in this part of Spain, honestly, it is up there with shitty British) famed for a long tasting menu showcasing innovative cooking and home grown produce. And the rest of the time we wandered around the pintxo bars in the old town.

I’m just going to say it - I didn’t like the pintxo scene at all. I like English and Irish pubs. I don’t mind drinking standing up, or hanging around on the pavement smoking, I’m not a princess who needs a seat. But I don’t like being crammed into a hot space with a tiny glass of really sour cider in one hand and a little plate of something messy in the other while six Surrey stockbrokers push past you, talking in loud voices about skiing.

Yes, the old town of San Sebastián (and it’s not actually that old, the place got built in its current form in the mid 19th century after the French destroyed it) is really, really touristy. Americans love it ever since His Holiness Antony Bourdain did a programme on the place (and don’t get me started on him, I’m also not a devotee at his shrine). Middle class couples from Northern Europe like it too - childless unmarried mini-breakers, or married ones who have parked the kids on the grandparents

I have a bit of a Generation X approach to boozing, a combination of a love of occasional binge drinking and the old-fashioned British approach that somehow, eating is cheating. All this European moderation, enjoying complicated nibbles with alcohol simply doesn’t appeal. Why not just wait and have some chips at the end of the night? Or a kebab if you are feeling lively?

Despite my expensive education and cosmopolitan lifestyle, I sometimes wonder if I might have absentmindedly eaten a mouthy, fighty chav called Trevor, who is constantly trying to claw his way out of me. Sometimes I invoke Trevor, when I need to deal with difficult situations, other times I kind of want him to pipe down and allow me to appreciate bourgeois things, but he simply won’t let me. I can’t do middle class. I can’t wear Boden or White Stuff. I can’t cope with Farrow and Ball paint, I cannot go to the Dordogne, or Norfolk (apart from Great Yarmouth or Cromer) or Latitude Festival, I can’t read the Guardian, listen to Radio 4 or eat sourdough bread. And it appears that Trevor didn’t like the old town of San Sebastián either.

My husband loved it. He ate ox cheeks and piles of damp crab on pieces of baguette. He drank lager from tiny glasses suitable for elves and watched, wide-eyed as waiters poured sparkling wine from a great height into other miniature glasses. I might be giving away another of my problems with the place, which is the time it takes to do stuff. You wait forever to get served and then are awarded a shot glass of drink and a saucer of something to eat. I hate waiting. I hate crowds. I don’t get it.

Two weeks ago I went back to do some research for a travel piece. I was invited on a tour that promised to take me off the beaten track to eat some of the town’s best pintxos. It was excellent — we set off early, at 6 pm meeting in the “centro” area of the town, which meant that we encountered a mostly local and definitely old-to-geriatric crowd, who were having a great time. The places we visited had few tourists, but, we were treated with great friendliness by the people we met. You often end up sharing a table with strangers and everyone we encountered was very nice to us. So thank you San Sebastián for having lovely old folk, who know how to enjoy themselves and are charming to foreign guests

We started in Bar Antonio where we ate triangles of tortilla that were completely runny in the middle. I’m, again, going to make myself unpopular with the Basque community, all San Sebby Superfans and most food writers, but I don’t get it. Why don’t you cook it? Why is tepid egg streaming from my tortilla like pus? May God forgive me, but I think it’s rank.

There are limited numbers of these egg-based delicacies available each day, so it is worth starting early. I heard several people say that it was the best tortilla in town - so definitely try it.

Then we tried a classic, or, as the Millennials would say, the “OG” pintxo, which was actually really delicious and very suitable snack with drinks. Called the “Gilda”, named after a film femme fatale, played by Rita Hayworth, this is an umami trifecta of olive, pepper and anchovy, skewered with a cocktail stick. I loved it. Try it here along with their very good battered hake.

I’m not going to lie, there were some misses. Baby squid, bursting with ink, was deeply uninspiring. I won’t tell tales and rat out the establishment that served this average bite. I’m sure someone might love it, but to me it was like chewing the end of a biro along with some rubber bands, quite a pencil case experience. Mercifully, next, in Bar Espiga, I had a fried stuffed red pepper, which was quite delicious and cheered me up.

If you eat meat, then you must have ham and if you must have ham, then it is probably pretty good wherever you go, but it is definitely good in this place, Juan Sebastián Bar, my favourite of all the Pintxo bars I visited. Why was it my favourite? Because it was empty, it was stylish and it served really, really good vermouth. And it also served the best tomato salad I have ever eaten in my life? Why don’t I have a photo of this salad? Because I ate it before I remembered to shoot it, and given that this was the last thing I ate on my tour, it’s a pretty good endorsement.

One of lockdown’s fads was making Basque burnt cheesecake, so I went to the place where it all started, La Vina. This is in the old town, it’s reasonably spacious inside, the cheesecake is served in pairs, two thin slices on one plate. It’s very slippery in the middle, and I discovered that it is made, not only from cream cheese, but also cubes of harder local cheese too, giving it extra umami. It’s rich, it’s good, it’s pretty unmissable but you will be rubbing shoulders with some absolutely ghastly pintxo collectors in here.

A loud Irish woman, dressed as if she had just chaired a Human Resources conference, accompanied by a timid-looking American with really firm hair harangued me: “Ah you are Australian, I love the Australians, sure it’s a long way from home for you”. “I’m not Australian” I said patiently, as she was clearly utterly battered. “Well what is your accent then?” she continued, adding a playful prod to my arm with her finger (and I had to have a strong word with Trevor at this point to stop him intervening). “Some people say it is posh, I think it’s just educated English” I replied. “Maybe you haven’t met anyone who speaks like me before”.

I mean - Arbitrix is all about good things and this place is most people’s absolute cup of tea. I like the other side of San Sebastián, its vintage theme park, its giant statue of Jesus on a hill. I saw a naked man, for once, not a hideous one, cavorting in the surf one morning as I went to get a coffee. If you are more grown up than me and don’t have a belligerent inner chav, I imagine you will adore this place.