I need to tell you something difficult: after San Sebastián, food at home doesn't taste the same anymore. I've been back for three months. I've tried to recapture that feeling at expensive restaurants, at hole-in-the-wall discoveries, at my own stove. Nothing comes close.
This isn't fair to San Sebastián. A city of 180,000 people shouldn't have sixteen Michelin stars. A casual bar snack shouldn't make you question every appetizer you've ever eaten. But here we are.
Understanding the Improbable
Here's the statistic that made me book this trip: San Sebastián has more Michelin stars per square kilometer than any other city on Earth. More than Paris. More than Tokyo. A small city in Spain's Basque Country, and it's the undisputed heavyweight champion of fine dining.
Why? The answers are complicated and involve geography, culture, and a particular Basque stubbornness about doing things properly. But the simple version is this: these people are obsessed with food. Not food as status. Not food as Instagram content. Food as a fundamental expression of identity.
The First Night: Parte Vieja
I landed in Bilbao, took the bus across the mountains (the drive itself is gorgeous), and checked into a small hotel a few streets back from La Concha beach. It was 9 PM — early by Spanish standards, prime time for pintxos.
Parte Vieja is the old town, a dense grid of narrow streets where practically every ground floor is a bar. But these aren't bars in the American sense. Each one has a counter covered with small plates — the pintxos — ranging from simple to absurdly elaborate.
The protocol confused me at first. You walk in, order a drink (txakoli — the local slightly fizzy white wine — is the move), survey the counter, point at what you want. Eat standing up. Leave the toothpicks on the counter so they can count your bill later. Move to the next bar.
That first night, stumbling from bar to bar with a guidebook I quickly abandoned, I had:
- Gilda — anchovy, olive, and piparra pepper on a skewer (the original pintxo)
- Txangurro — spider crab gratinated in its shell
- Foie with apple reduction (at a casual standing bar, for €4)
- Kokotxas — cod cheeks in pil-pil sauce
- Something involving smoked eel that I can't find the name for
I spent maybe €35 total. I was full, slightly drunk on txakoli, and already understanding why this city has its reputation.
Arzak: The Cathedral
You can't write about San Sebastián without mentioning Arzak. Three Michelin stars held continuously since 1989. Juan Mari Arzak is 81 now; his daughter Elena runs the kitchen with him. The restaurant sits in an unremarkable neighborhood, not on the beach, not in a dramatic building. Just a place where impossible things happen to food.
I booked three months in advance and still felt lucky to get a table.
The meal lasted four hours. Fourteen courses. I won't describe each one because honestly, words fail here. But a few moments:
A "bread" course that involved flavored air solidified into something like a cloud. An egg where the yolk had been replaced with something savory that made the whole concept of "egg" seem new. A fish preparation where the skin was served as a crackling and the flesh as a mousse and the bones had been turned into a consommé.
"We are not trying to surprise you. We are trying to remind you. Everything here comes from our traditions. It just goes somewhere unexpected."
— Elena Arzak, when explaining the menu philosophy
The cost? About €280 per person with wine pairings. Objectively expensive. Subjectively, the most reasonable €280 I've ever spent.
The SidrerĂas: Cider and Steak
Between high-end meals, I needed something grounding. The sidrerĂas — traditional cider houses in the hills outside the city — provided exactly that.
Cider season runs January through April, but several places operate year-round. I visited Petritegi, about 15 minutes by taxi from downtown. The format is simple and hasn't changed in centuries: you pay a fixed price (around €40) and eat a set menu. Cod omelette. Salt cod with peppers. Ribeye steak cooked over coals. Cheese with quince paste and walnuts.
The cider comes straight from massive barrels called kupelas. Someone yells "TXOTX!" (pronounced sort of like "chotch"), and everyone lines up with glasses to catch cider poured from height. You drink that glass, immediately get back in line. Repeat until someone yells again.
The cider is tart, barely alcoholic, and impossible to describe. Nothing in the US compares. By the end of the meal, standing around a communal table with strangers who've become friends, half-shouting in broken Spanish, I understood why the Basques are the way they are about food. It's not about the individual dishes. It's about what food does to community.
The Markets and the Fishermen
My last morning, I woke at 6 AM and walked to the port. Not the tourist harbor — the actual working fishing area where the boats come in.
An older fisherman named Patxi (everyone here seems to be named Patxi or Iker or Aitor) saw me taking photos and started talking. My Spanish is survival-level at best. His English was three words. We communicated anyway.
He showed me the morning's catch: sea bream, hake, some kind of ray. He pointed at one restaurant — a pintxo bar I'd visited two nights before — and mimed eating, then gave a thumbs up. His boat supplies them. Has for twenty years.
Later that morning, at La Bretxa market, I watched the same fish being fought over by home cooks and restaurant buyers. The vendors knew everyone. Brief negotiations happened. Money changed hands. A woman my mother's age carried home a bag that contained, I am not exaggerating, an entire turbot.
This is the part the Michelin guides don't capture. Yes, the fancy restaurants are extraordinary. But they exist because there's still a culture underneath them — fishermen who care, markets that function, home cooks who demand quality. The starred restaurants are the peak, but the mountain beneath them is just as impressive.
What to Know If You Go
When to Visit
September is ideal: still warm enough for the beach, not as crowded as August, and the fall produce is starting to arrive. January through April for cider season if you want the genuine sidrerĂa experience.
How Long
Four nights minimum. You need time to recover between major meals. One or two starred restaurants, several evenings of pintxo hopping, a day trip to a sidrerĂa, and time to just wander.
Reservations
Arzak, Mugaritz, Martin Berasategui, Akelare — book these months ahead. Seriously. For everything else, including many excellent one-star places, a few days' notice usually works.
Pintxo Strategy
Don't try to hit every famous bar in one night. Pick a neighborhood (Parte Vieja is the classic). Enter a bar, have one pintxo and one drink. Move on. Four to six bars makes a meal. The hottest ones have crowds; the best ones often don't.
Language
Spanish is appreciated but not required. Many bars have English menus or at least English-speaking staff. The Basque language (Euskera) is everywhere but don't worry about learning it — even Basques are impressed when non-speakers know basic phrases.
Budget
You could spend €50 per day on pintxos and eat brilliantly. Or €500 at a three-star. The magic of San Sebastián is that both experiences are valid, and the €50 day might be the more memorable one.
The Difficult Return
I flew home through Madrid, where I had a four-hour layover. I grabbed a bocadillo at an airport café — ham and cheese on decent bread. It was fine. Totally fine.
But sitting there, chewing competent airport food, I felt something like grief. San Sebastián had recalibrated my entire sense of what's possible. Ham and cheese can be transcendent. A bar snack can move you to tears. People can still care about ingredients and technique and tradition and do so without pretension.
I know I'll go back. Probably next fall. There are bars I missed, restaurants I couldn't book, market mornings I want to experience again. The problem is that now I know what exists. Every mediocre meal at home feels like a small betrayal.
Maybe that's the true cost of a trip like this. You can't un-taste excellence.
Planning a Basque Country food trip? Get in touch — I have extensive notes and am happy to share specific recommendations, especially for the pintxo bars that don't make it into guidebooks.