Food in the Basque Country is renowned to be good. Food in Bilbao, Donostia and villages along the coast are so different. You get unlimited types of pintxos, regional dishes of Basque Country and Spanish food with French influence. In our opinion, pintxos in Bilbao are less creative but tasted amazing. A pintxo spot in Bilbao which stood out to us was Bar El Globo where they serve rich foie gras, stunning blue fin tuna and mousse-based pintxos such as their famous spider crab au gratin. Another spot worthy a mention was Gore Toki where we had a stunning burger (they serve half a burger = a pintxo) and one of the best tarta de queso (Basque cheesecakes). Yes, we had many portions of cheesecake in this trip! Don’t worry, we visited more than just pintxo bars. We also visited Cafe Irina, a traditional restaurant, where they serve traditional meals where we had monkfish and lamb.

As expected, there are many outstanding bars and restaurants serving creative and traditional pintxos as well as other classic Spanish foods in Donostia. We visited Danena Taverna which is famous for their tortilla patata. There must be people of like it but in our opinion, they were just too oily for our taste. Gandarias serves a stunning sea urchin, risotto and delicious solomillo (fillet of beef). The highlights were La Chucara and Bar Antonio. La Chucara serves pintxos with traditional flavours. For example their infamous slow-roasted Leitza piglet, Galician razor clams, Galician octopus and Rioja-style orzo with scallop, all paired with a crisp glass of txakoli. In contrast, Antonio’s pintxos are more modern in flavour and presentation. Unfortunately the kitchen was closed on our first time there, which means only cold pintxos were available. Nonetheless the cold pintxos did not disappoint. The Iberia jamon sandwich was savoury and the octopus on skewer was amazing. Since we could not try their hot pintxos, we went back the second time! We were surprised to be greeted by a queue. We waited an hour to be seated but it was so worth it. We ordered the famous trio as recommended by the waiter, who seemed to know a thing or two about food. The trio consisted of crispy oxtail, prawn ravioli in white Martini sauce and Igeldo, a pintxo with anchovy, guindilla peppers, tuna on a bed of tomato salsa. Other memorable spots were Atari where we had a delicious bacalao (cod) in Pil Pil sauce and Bar Sport where we had foie gras, pigs feet, grilled squid and more cheesecake. Speaking of cheesecake, we tried a standalone cheesecake shop, La Zaragozana. located diagonally opposite La Viña but without La Viña’s queue. They seem to have many cheesecakes but not many customers. We suspected they might be the supplier for a few restaurants in town. It was nice, less sweet but at the same time tasted less cheesy than the one from La Viña, which was more cheesy and has soft creamy centre.

On our last day, we were back in Bilbao for one last night. We treated ourselves with a 8-course meal at AL Margen. Overall the meal was predominantly creative use of meatless ingredients. One of them was a broccoli dish which was accompanied by lime zest and a spring onion sauce. Unfortunately, in our opinion, the broccoli was too charred which resulted in slightly bitter aftertaste. The three meat dishes were quail with rice, tuna with bilbaina sauce and guindilla peppers and braised pork belly, sweet potato and pickled onion. The meal ended with a panna cotta.

The overall impression is no clear winner which is the best restaurant. Perhaps naming a few outstanding dishes is more appropriate as each establishment has its amazing dishes in its own right.