Basque 2025 - The Report

[Maribel]

Nice photos, Ziggy! I see you took the lovely walk down the Paseo de la Concha to Antiguo and Ondarreta beach, past the beautiful Palacio de Miramar all the way to Chillida’s Peine del Viento.
That´s a great walk!

El Kbuzón is getting solid reviews, even gets a mention on Macarfi. We have it on our list for Jan. as we don´t usually get up that far to Sagües. So thanks very much for bringing it to our attention.

Speaking of the Gros neighborhood, it really gets short shrift regarding its pintxos bars / restaurants, as most folks don’t venture beyond the Parte Vieja or La Concha, so I´m very glad that you mentioned it and that you enjoyed staying there.

Places we enjoy in Gros:
Bodega Donostiarra , even open for breakfast, with 2 venues on both sides of Peña y Goñi (the new one is far less touristed) for their famous “completo” or their “Indurain” or individually made tortillas.

Bar Bergara, the bar that originated the miniature haute cuisine movement, now 75 years old, where you can have a degustation of their award-winning pintxos for 35 euros.

Bar Manojo, the new kid on the block, rather hidden away,

Not to mention our very favorite, that Ziggy, I´m sure will soon be writing about, Artean Barra Abierta, run lovingly by a Peruvian couple, she at the counter only seating, he, the chef, hidden away in the kitchen.

Plus in Gros you have the Mexican or Basque American-Spanish hybrids, Gatxupa by Bruno Oteiza, and Adoni Aduriz of Mugartiz´s Basque-South American offering, Topa Sukaldería

Also Gerald’s Bar is a great place for lunch and for a drop in, casual meal with a huge selection of fine wines plus tapas there´s Curdeleón.

So as Ziggy has done, venture out beyond the Old Quarter to Gros for a bite or two!.

Your photo of the flysch is lovely. Zumaia and Getaria have become our favorite alternatives to San Sebastián in July-August when hotel prices there soar. We’ve stayed in Getaria for 3 summers in a row in 3 different lodgings surrounded by Txakolina vineyards.

[Ziggy]

Maribel, you missed one very important post…

Basque 2025 - The Report

Artean Barra Abierta (San Sebastián) Pound for pound best meal of the trip other than the three Michelin epic we had a coupe of days later. By far the best value, and super enjoyable. Run by a Peruvian couple. He’s in the kitchen while she’s putting the finishing touches in the front, with their Italian friend helping with the serving. All bar seating. Scallop Gildas - With the usual Gilda ingredients except raw scallops instead of anchovies, plus roasted tomatoes, pine nuts, and Parmigiano …

[Ziggy]

Tierra y Vino (Samaniego)

Moving on to Rioja where we spent a wonderful 24 hours, basing in Palacio de Samaniego. The Palacio stay was superb (with a few hiccups) though dinner at the palace was the first disappointing meal of the trip. Tough to follow after the San Sebastián leg. But still had high hopes after praises by Macarfi, Michelin and more.

The entire experience was just strange, but typical of a hotel restaurant. We got a huge table for 4 at the edge of the room where it was sort of between intimate and quiet server chaos. The servers were fantastic but the whole thing just felt a little pretentious.

Worst of the offenders was Mrs Z’s tomato starter. Bland cooked tomatoes with other ingredients (can’t remember) that sounded promising on paper. Flavors just didn’t pop, the theme of the night. Same for the croaker carpaccio. Form without substance.

Monkfish, a far cry from Ezkia a week ago. The Turbot not much better. All sounded great on paper. My Mushrooms with egg and truffle was good but no better than the average Asador and needed a pinch of salt. This is the first time I used the table salt in a long time.

The saving grace were the meat dishes and the local wines. Beef cheeks with Aligot was very good but could have used a little more Aligot. Duck was cooked well as well. Desserts not very memorable.

Off night? New menu? Emperor’s new clothes? No idea. I’m giving a generous 3.

3/5

More on the day and a very special meetup later.

[Maribel]

@ziggy,
Oh no!!
Their Portuguese chef came from Marqués de Riscal, having earned a star there, but maybe he wasn’t cooking that night? Or maybe he very recently left (and they haven’t changed the web page)? Or maybe there’s a new menu the kitchen hasn’t yet perfected? I have no idea. I have to ask our friends in Abalos if they have any scoop.
So sorry, as you and lovely Mrs. Z were on such a winning streak!

[Ziggy]

Agree. The Ibarboure experience is the sum of all parts, including the hotel. Such great value. When we arrived there was these great award winning cookies waiting for us that we enjoyed throughout the stay.

[Ziggy]

Yes, that broke a very nice streak. But we were still batting around .925 so I’ll take it. Lunch was fun. More on that soon. Sorry for asking again @Maribel, but did you see the Artean Barra Abierta report? It got lost in the shuffle here.

[Maribel]

Hi Ziggy,
I’m behind on my reading, I got lost! So glad you enjoyed Artean Barra Abierta. I’ll remember to order those Gildas!

[Maribel]

@Ziggy
That disappointing dinner at Tierra y Vino may have been because it was a holiday weekend (Fiesta Nacional/Día de la Hispanidad, Oct 12) and the chef may have had the weekend off. When the chef isn’t there, the Palacio sometimes sends its guests to lunch at my friend’s restaurant, La Cocina de Merche.

This is why we didn’t book a roast lamb feast on the way home in Sepúlveda, Pedraza or Torrecaballeros, because we knew that on that Saturday the hornos de asar (roasting houses) would be slammed.

You might have had much better luck at the Restaurante el Puntido in the winery at Páganos but they do lunch only. I hate mediocre meals. Sorry!

[Ziggy]

Moving on. Martín Berasategui wasn’t the only celebrity we met on this trip. The next day we met the myth, the legend, @Maribel in Samaniego. She’s real ya’ll. Its not AI. A true pleasure to meet her and her partner. Such a nice start to our Rioja stay.

And all was not lost food wise in Rioja Valley. We had a fantastic Pintxo crawl in Logroño:

Bar Soriano - Grilled Cremini mushroom tower with shrimp on top and bread, what else. I’m not even sure they serve anything else. Sounds kinda meh but its so satisfyingly garlicky and buttery. Places all over town trying to mimic this.

Bar Lorenzo “Agus Tio” - Very tasty Bocadillos, mini pork skewer sandwiches. Light and delicious.

Torres Gastrobar - finished with a bang. Mini Kobe Beef cutlets with fries and green peppers. Supremely flavorful. Squid sandwiches also good.

The one glaring aspect was how cheap everything was compared to San Sebastián. The entire old town is stunning and the scene around Calle del Laurel is a sensory overload.

Did the obligatory stops at Bodegas Ysios, Marqués de Riscal, Baigorri, walking distance from our hotel. The only place where we did a tasting was Ostatu. Other than a young white, really excellent robust stuff such as the white gran reserva and red Gloria recommended by Maribel.

The following morning we spent following @LulusMom1 footsteps in LaGuardia. Unexpectedly also followed Sara Luna’s footsteps, a local artist. Another beautiful day, another beautiful town. Got ridiculously lucky with the weather.

Moving on to Bilbao. Pain is almost over…

[erica1]

I almost doubled over when I read this line:
“By the time it was over I was invited to a bar mitzvah in Guatemala.”

Now, my photo is unmarked; is this the man you met at his eponymous restaurant?? (This was taken at La Boqueria; I could tell he knew a lot about food, from our conversation. And when he walked away, someone told me that he was a “famous chef.”

[Maribel]

Ziggy,
It was a true pleasure to meet you and your lovely wife in Samaniego. I’m so glad we could make it work out!

In Logroño you began with 2 of the most traditional and loved bars, starting your pintxos crawl at the most popular humble classic, Bar Soriano, from 1972 in the 4-street Laurel zone. The crowd there was probably spilling out to the street since it’s so tiny. Yes, only 1 dish is prepared here, their uber famous champi, simple but delicious. The wild mushrooms, champis, come from the village of Pradejón and they do fly off the grill! Another Bar Sebas does them, but Soriano is the champion.

The 4-street Laurel zone is locally known as La Senda de los Elefantes (the trail/path of the elephants). What does an elephant have to do with this famous pintxos crawl?
If you do the entire walk, after a night of wine drinking at its almost 70 bars, you may end up with a trompa (the word for elephant trunk). The slang for “to get drunk” in Spanish is salir trompa. The Laurel zone streets are pedestrian so that you can navigate more easily after all those wines.

They say the concentration of bars here grew up from the old wine shops that use to sell Rioja’s wine on these medieval streets. Like in the Basque Country Rioja celebrates a prestigious annual pintxos competition. But unlike San Sebastián, a pintxos crawl cost half as much! Instead of costing 4-6 euros per pintxo, here the specialties will set you back half of that, you´re so right!

Each bar has a specialty, so you ordered the specialty at Tio Angus, which, like the Bar Soriano champi, also is bathed in a sauce, here their “secret” chimichurri sauce inherited from grandma Damiana.
Grandma didn’t leave the children any money, but she left them her priceless recipe.

One of your Laguardia photos I see is of SVGAR, the place on Calle Páganos where we go for grilled meats. Laguardia is my favorite Riojan fortified hill town, which inside the medieval walls has a fascinating and vast warren of 300 or so once interconnecting underground wine caves or cellars or lagares, some 3 stories deep. You can take a self guided tour of these corridors of caves at the tourist office.
Each house has its own lagar. During the Fiesta de San Juan-San Pedro we were regularly invited to a friend’s cellar to partake of the festival drink, the zurracapote (red wine, water, sugar, 2 lemons and a cinnamon stick).

Again, really enjoying your story and your photos and eagerly awaiting the Bilbao ending!

[Ziggy]

Yep, pretty sure thats the man. Very cool!

[Maribel]

Yep, that’s Martín and as he would say, ¡garrote!

He applied the term, many years ago to encourage his mother and aunt to continue the family enterprise after the illness of his father. Those who have “garrote” can do it. Since then it’s become his favorite expression to convey the ability to confront a personal challenge with energy.

[Ziggy]

We got lucky with Bar Soriano. It wasnt very busy when we arrived. But when we came back an hour later, it was how you described. The entire area got so busy, I doubt you could fit a baby elephant on the main street.

If I recall SVGAR has sort of a convoluted way to make reservations. Maybe its not so bad once you do it. I considered but opted to eat closer to Bilbao.

Yes, we ended up inside a building full of tourists buying tickets for the cave tours, while we were staring at some giant dolls. Very interesting town. My first timer impressions of Rioja is Laguardia and Logroño are the main reasons to visit

[Ziggy]

That’s interesting. I just read about it some more.

Erica, I’m sorry but you need a redo since he didnt do the Garrote thing (raising a fist).

[Maribel]

Yes, you definitely need a redo with the fist! Did you snap a photo Ziggy?

Those dolls in the tourist office are the much loved by the locals “Gigantes”. Every village in the Rioja, Pamplona and the Basque Country has them, some are a century old and local treasures, lovingly cared for by the locals, and they parade through the streets during their fiestas, especially in Pamplona on July 7, the first full day of the SanFermines. The ones in Pamplona are particularly famous as they even went to NY for the World’s Fair, one of the few times they traveled outside of Spain.

[Maribel]

Here’s Martín doing his “garrote” thing with his former sommelier, Valentina Litman.

[Maribel]

MB’s restaurant empire still holds 9 Michelin stars, although he lost 2 recently, only because his Oria in Barcelona’s Monument Hotel closed temporarily for renovation and he pulled out of his Etxeko in Ibiza’s Hotel Bless. At one brief time MB held 13 Michelin stars!
He had to pull out of his supervision of Madrid’s Club Allard and also Lisbon’s 52 seconds and he closed his San Sebastián cider house “Eme Be Garrote!”, which is now
El Vaskito.

[Ziggy]

Yes, we snapped a photo of the three of us doing the “garrote”, pretending we know what the heck we are doing.

[Maribel]

@Ziggy