A FOODIES TRAVEL GUIDE TO SAN SEBASTIAN

We arrived in Bilbao around 230pm and after a picturesque hours transfer to San Sebastian arrived at our base for the next few days, the Five Star Hotel Maria Cristina. The hotel was a beautifully classic luxury hotel, white table cloths at breakfast, traditional luxe interior decor, and grand bedrooms with the sweetest nightly turn down service.

Once we’d settled in, freshened up and for me unpacked my bags and made myself at home, we headed downstairs to the hotels lounge area for drinks (champagne and Aperol) and our first taste of iberico ham … I like to think of this as the warm up, for what was to follow, tonns of the most delicious ham you’ve ever eaten.

At 630pm three local guides joined ready to take us off for a very brief tour of the local area, and most importantly a taster for the Pintoxs bars San Sebastian has to offer. I sadly can’t remember the names of the Pintoxs bars we visited, but needless to say the old city was packed street after street with little bars selling their delicious nibbles. Each Pintoxs bar tends to have a speciality, whether it be their steak, anchovies or of course iberico ham. The best thing about these bars is the idea is you visit a few, taste a few things that take your fancy, and generally catch up with friends before you head onto your evenings dinner plans. We tried some delicious meat and prawns during our Pintoxs visit, and had our first taste of the local wine, txakoli (pronounced chicoli).

My one tip is to ask the barman what the chefs are cooking, as we learnt that often the best Pintoxs are actually not on display, but cooked fresh on request, so don’t assume you have to choose from those Pintoxs laid out on the bar. For those that don’t know or haven’t tried, Pintoxs are effectively little tasters laid out in Spanish bars for you to come and eat as a snack pre dinner, culturally people tend to enjoy them with friends after work, and traditionally they’re served on bread as a means to act as a plate – so don’t feel you have to fill up on the beige!

At 8.30pm we headed for dinner at a traditional Basque restaurant in the old village, I had baked lamb which was like nothing i’ve ever had before, both majorly tender but also a really delicious flavoursome chewy skin (almost pork belly style).

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DAY 2: TXAKOLI & ARZAK

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After a mighty breakfast at the hotel, we headed out of San Sebastian city centre to a local Vineyard, Txakoli Rezabal vineyard. We had a wonderful tour of the vineyard and tried three of the local wines produced here. The overall consensus was the Rose Txakoli was the best. If the morning wine tasting wasn’t enough to fire our belly’s, we tend headed to a Petritegi (a local cider producer) for traditional Sidrería and an absolute feast of local basque food. You would need a car or planned transport for these trips, but given they are such a fundamental part of basque culture they’re worth doing for a morning. Despite the fact the cider was the main point of the Petritegi visit, it was the food I wanted to report home on. My goodness the food was something else: salt cod omelette, salt cod, and more rib eye than you can imagine – I truly mean MORE RIB EYE than you could even imagine, it was so much we skipped the cheese course AND the pudding course. Ironically the food is ‘poor’ food traditionally, but if you love salt cold and a good steak then the flavours aren’t to miss.

The afternoon was then spent exploring the local area and in a siesta trying to digest lunch before a rather special evening. Starting with roof top drinks in the suite.