San Sebastián

Regional Dining Discussions Italy, Spain, Portugal
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For those following this thread, here is a recent “best restaurants of San Sebastián” article that is quite solid (from the author whom I know).

The new Sa Taula (“The Table” in catalán) gives me a bit of pause (but I haven’t been) only because if you don’t know your dining partners sitting around the big, wooden 10-person table, it could possibly be a “hit or miss” experience. But English speakers have given it rave reviews for the creativity of the dishes and the owners’ warm hospitality.

Everyone arrives at once, at 9 pm. And it’s open from April until November.
Like dining at a friend’s house, it works best, I think, booked by a group of your friends.
The two catalán chefs offer a “surprise”, improvised menu only, priced at 65 or 95 with natural wines. There is no kitchen, just a microwave, a hot plate, a sous-vide and a Thermomix. An interesting concept.

We’ve been somewhat underwhelmed by Muka, the former space of Ni Neu in the Kursaal, as the décor downstairs is rather spartan and the vegetable forward menu from their grill, to us, not that interesting, but…
it’s a very handy spot for vegetarians (very creative vegetable dishes) or just to have a bite on the terrace with lovely water views, where the Urumea River meets the Cantabrian sea. And there’s counter seating in front of the open kitchen to watch the action. And the bread with olive oil is delicious. It’s part of the IXO group of the chef of Mugaritz.

The others, we’ve enjoyed very much.

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Thanks for this! I just spent the last hour or so gently falling down the San Sebastian rabbit hole :smiley:

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I’m glad it was a gentle fall. :grinning:

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About Carabineiros: As usual, if you eat shellfish way away from their origin, the price goes up exponentially. In Huelva, this is the going price: https://mariscodeislacristina.com/producto/carabineros-o-brillantes-de-huelva/
Same things with perceves: I pay 20 to 25 Euros / kg, In Lisbon they can reach 75 at Corte Ingles, and double that in restaurants…
So eat the local shellfish, not the “imported” one.

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Interesting that ANTONIO charges more for carabineros from the Huelva area (not so far from Zahara) than Pescaderias Coruneses in Madrid; I am surprised by that…is this because Zahara is a tourist zone? I certainly have no complaint about the quality of the carabineros, or anything else I’ve sampled at ANTONIO. I am so enamored by that restaurant that I choose not to peer too closely at the prices of what I am ordering. And since I eat only one meal a day…rationalize, rationalize!

Has anyone here watched the Jose Andes’ tv show about his time with his family on Lanzarote? He goes to the dock to buy carabineros…that episode is what drew me to Lanzarote, although I don’t recall if I tasted carabineros there…

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Yes, we have watched, several times, actually, the José Andrés episode in Lanzarote, which is what drew us to the island in November for the Saborea Lanzarote Gastronomic Festival, staying at the lovely Palacio de Ico in charming Teguise, whose restaurant this year won a Repsol sun.
We did enjoy carabineros once, at the beautiful hotel-restaurant, César Lanzarote, my favorite hotel of all the lodgings that we visited, just exquisite in every way. It was prepared with broken eggs and potatoes. Yumm!
At El Risco in Famara we ordered the prawns from La Santa, smaller than I expected them to be.

We’ve never opted for carabineros in the Basque Country, that I can recall. We focus on wild caught fish, as in Asturias, and Basque rib steak. Locally caught hake, Dover sole, monkfish, sea bream, sea bass, turbot, tuna, virrey (also known as rey, alfonsino, palometa roja)…

On this most recent trip we indulged in turbot, rodaballo. in the Uribe, Bizkaia, at Katxi,
sea bream, besugo, at Joxe Mari in Orio (where Somebody Feed Phil filmed), tuna stew, marmitako, both at Antonio Boulevard, San Sebastián and Uŕiti in Gamiz (near Bilbao) because wonderful tuna is in season, hake in green sauce, merluza en salsa verde with shrimp and clams, at Garai in the Duranguesado, fresh anchovies straight from the pier at TX in Getaria, which the owner of Txomin Etxaniz prepared for me, rice with lobster, arroz con bogavante, at Txoko by Enrique Fleishman, also in Getaria.

.Who says Basque can’t prepare an excellent rice dish??
The paëllas on display at the outdoor market in St-Jean-de-Luz, Iparralde, looked wonderful. We wished, once again, that we had opted for a rental there to take advantage of the bounty within the market.

Speaking of rice dishes and our friend, mikelg of Tours by Basques, we met him at new The Rice Factory in Urduliz (Bizkaia) and enjoyed a great rice dish of gamba roja made with the Molino Roca brand, now my rice brand of choice.

But at Bedua in Zumaia, we opted for Basque rib steak, their famous txuleta.

And at the wedding we attended in the Goierri, the gorgeous Basque Highlands south of Tolosa, the reception was at a local cider house, with that typical cider house menu of tortilla de bacalao, bacalao frito con pimientos (cod, cod and more cod), txuleta, Idiazábal cheese with apple paste, like quince paste, accompanied by walnuts, plus all the cider one can drink from the barrels during the txotx, the traditional opening of the spiket of the barrels, to drink directly from them. A wonderful, sloppy mess!

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@Monchique
At my El Corte Inglés hypermarket here in the Madrid suburbs, yesterday there were 2 specimens of percebes/perceves. The ones from Galicia were double the price of the ones I assume came from the Algarve. When in the market of Olhão, I was surprised by the relative “low” price of the perceves, compared to what I experience here.

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Here is a sign at a restaurant (that we liked, A FURNA) in Muxia; but that’s restaurant, not market, price.

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At my hipermercado ECI yesterday the carabineros were priced at 149.95/kilo and the Galician percebes at 99.95/kilo. I just realized that those lower priced percebes, at 39.95/kilo aren’t from the Algarve, but instead from Morocco. On our recent Feb. trip to Marrakech, Tangier and Rabat we saw none at the markets, nor on the restaurant menus, which, of course, wasn’t surprising. Food was exquisite, but no shellfish!

Now… back to our regularly scheduled programming—SAN SEBASTIÁN!

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G is great. I know her from our college days. Back in 03 or so she took us around SS, EVERYBODY knew her.

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One shellfish dish that we do order in the Basque Country is spider crab, txangurro a la donostiarra, spider crab meat baked in its shell with a delicious sauce and covered with butter and bread crumbs.

A great place to have this iconic dish: Rekondo, with gorgeous views of the entire bay.

An old Saveur recipe-

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What a fantastic and fantastically useful list, many thanks for your posts. Rather envious of your 4x per year visits.

I am going to SS with friends in October for first time in 14 years (I blame the children), having previously been several times.

Currently trying to choose between Akelarre and Martin B for our posh Saturday lunch (have done Arzak previously, though it was a long time ago). I am edging towards Martin B, but could be swayed either way, do you have a strong view in either direction.

Many thanks

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@ArmchairContrarian
I would choose Akelarre for the views but Martín Berasategui for the tasting menu.
But both are wonderful. It’s really a toss up.
Akelarre is a taxi ride up to Monte Igeldo with gorgeous vistas from the dining room and MB is a longer taxi ride out to suburban Lasarte.

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Thanks, it does seem to be a tricky one, but think I am going to go with Martín Berasategui.

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Good choice! I hope you’re pleased. I have a chef friend here in Madrid who worked for several years along with a (then) “young” Martín, admires him greatly, and he and his group chose to reserve at MB when he was awarded a Repsol sun in SS.

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Reading this thread with great interest as we are now going down the proverbial San Sebastián rabbit hole! I see Sa Taula mentioned, but looks like nobody here has been yet. Anyone? Looks very interesting to us. We like the idea of only 10 diners eating together. Would love to hear opinions from anyone who has been there, or heard from a local, etc. In the meantime, my list is growing longer by the minute!

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I asked my friend in January, who owns the original food and wine touring company in San Sebastián, if she had been to this tiny place in a back corner of Gros and she hadn’t. It’s Omakase, catalán style, dining in a sort of tiny Basque txoko.

It hasn’t been on my “must do” list only because I’m hesitant about dining with 9 other people that I don’t know, sitting around a large wood table and not having a choice of the menu or knowing in advance.
Unless it´s changed recently, all 10 diners come at the same time, at 8:30. One now can book on Cover Manager.

You don´t know what you will eat…it´s whatever the two chefs have found at the market that morning. I believe that menu consists of 3 starters and 5 mains, and the final bill depends on how many wine bottles they’ve opened during the course of the dinner.

This is a rough translation of a review (I subscribe to this newspaper):

“First you stand and chat with your fellow diners, getting to know each other.
Then you sit down at the (farmhouse like) table and the two catalán chefs start bringing out what looks like an impromptu lunch.
They begin with a variety of homemade cured meats, pâtés, pickles, fermented foods…
The table fills up with small plates and the wine is passed around.
You chat with the person next to you, pour them water, and discover you have more people in common than you thought. You haven’t stopped eating or drinking, you’re thinking about how well these people cook, and the night ends with you going up to the storage room to see if they really do make the cured meats themselves.”

“In 2023, they opened Sa Taula. On one side sit the diners, just ten per service, and on the other, the duo works their magic while you’re not quite sure how the containers fill up with broths, sauces, and stews.
There’s no kitchen in the dining room, but they never stop opening jars, emptying containers, and serving delicious dishes. Chef Guijarro explains that the space came first, followed by the decision to offer this type of service. It was what they could afford, and the place was so small that they decided to solve it this way.”

He says: “We don’t have a kitchen; we do everything with an oven, a Thermomix, and low temperatures.”
“The fact that the format lends itself to a relaxed and welcoming experience doesn’t detract from the exquisite service and food.”

That’s all I know.

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Sounds very interesting; 65 euro carta.
Might put it on my own list.

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95 euros if wine is included. It opens up again in April.

Marti Buckley’s review
“Strip a restaurant down to its barest of bones and you get something like Sa Taula: a big wooden island (the taula, or table in Balearic Catalán) with two guys cooking on one side, which takes up most of this miniature restaurant. You’ll likely walk by it a few times thanks to its lack of signage – chefs Carlos Guijarro Flores and Mane Galve Toldrà opened in 2023 as the antithesis of the city’s buttoned-up Michelin stars. Inside, you’re shoulder to shoulder around the kitchen island, just arm’s reach from the chefs serving up homemade charcuterie, from sobrasada to cured Iberian pork loin, and simple yet elegant locally sourced dishes. The convivial feel belies the work put into sourcing the freshest vegetables delivered by nearby farmers and fish and meat from the city’s markets. Carlos and Mane fashion plates off the cuff on the daily, ranging from fresh tuna with candied pumpkin seeds to semi-dried tomatoes with cherries and chocolate. Dessert could be a lemon pie with crunchy chicken skin or simply sublime strawberries served with the tiniest pickled onions. Reserve one of the ten nightly spots in advance during the restaurant’s open season, April to November.”

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The lemon pie with the crunchy chicken skin sounds unusual but I’d give it all a try!

Maybe I ought to spend a week there next year before returning to Vejer (direct flight, Bilbao-Jerez) !!

Preparing chicken skin at PUR (recommended) in Barcelona:

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