What to Eat in the Basque Country: Typical Basque Food and Specialties
For me, Basque cuisine is the best that Spanish gastronomy has to offer - and the Basque Country is the best place in all of Spain to travel for food.
The autonomous community of Euskadi in northern Spain is made up of three provinces: coastal Gipuzkoa with San Sebastián, Bizkaia with Bilbao, and inland Álava with Vitoria-Gasteiz. People here cook in a language nobody else in the world speaks: pintxo, txakoli, txuleton, txistorra - and every one of those tx's is simply pronounced "ch".
Few regions in the world do great food both for a few euros and for a month's salary - and in the Basque Country the two are a few hundred meters apart. The old-town bars of San Sebastián and Bilbao have display cases groaning under dozens of pintxos, and a little further on, four restaurants hold three Michelin stars. Add to that the cod Basque fishermen were already bringing back from Newfoundland in the 16th century, beef steaks grilled over charcoal, members-only clubs where only the members cook, and a wine that gets poured from half a meter up.
Not everything you'll eat in the Basque Country is actually Basque, though - and vice versa. Anchovies are mostly packed in neighboring Cantabria, the sloe liqueur patxaran has both its birthplace and its protected designation in Navarre, txuleton is grilled from Galician cows, and the most famous Basque cake was born on the French side of the border. The Basques know all this and make no secret of it - and they've happily claimed the lot as their own.
Symbols of Basque Cuisine
The first symbol is pintxos, the little bites on bar counters. Served on a slice of bread or skewered on a toothpick (the Spanish "pinchar" means to skewer), beautifully laid out in display cases and ordered by pointing: that one with crab, that one with anchovy. Bars in San Sebastián started putting them out on their counters in the 1930s, and today every bar in the Basque Country runs on them. They're not tapas - you pay for a pintxo, eat it standing up in one or two bites and move straight on to the next bar. Michelin-starred chefs have since turned them into "haute cuisine in miniature", and bars go head to head at pintxo championships.
The queen of pintxos is the gilda: a green olive, an anchovy and a pickled guindilla pepper on a toothpick. It was the first pintxo to get a name of its own - it was christened in the 1940s at the Casa Vallés tavern in San Sebastián after Rita Hayworth's film role, because, just like her, it was "green, salty and a little spicy". The anchovy is salty enough to make you wince, the pepper crunches and delivers a hit of acidity, and the olive smooths it all over - a bite that has you ordering another one straight away.
The second symbol is cod - bacalao. Salted and dried cod fed the Basque Country for centuries, and Bilbao was the main port through which it flowed into Spain. Bacalao al pil-pil is the pinnacle of Basque cooking: the cod is slowly warmed in olive oil with garlic, and swirling the clay dish whips the oil and the gelatin from the fish skin into a thick emulsion - a mayonnaise without egg, held together by nothing but physics and patience. Bacalao a la vizcaína, on the other hand, bathes the cod in a sauce of dried choricero peppers; according to traditionalists, tomatoes have no place in it. As for the legend of the merchant who, thanks to a typo in his order, received a million cod just before the siege of Bilbao, we'll get to that in the fun facts below.
Typical Basque Food
Basque cuisine is built on the sea. Fishermen from Bermeo, Getaria and Ondarroa bring in bonito, which goes into marmitako - a thick tuna and potato stew that was born right on the decks of fishing boats. Kokotxas are a delicacy - the gelatinous throat pieces of hake or cod, braised al pil-pil or in salsa verde, a green sauce of parsley and white wine. San Sebastián gave its name to the baked crab dish txangurro a la donostiarra and to the festive red sea bream besugo a la donostiarra, squid are stewed here in their own ink (chipirones en su tinta), and in the bars, two top-quality anchovies on bread count as a pintxo in their own right.
Inland, it's all about meat and beans. Txuleton is a thick-cut rib steak from old cows (vaca vieja), grilled over charcoal in asadors - the older the animal, the deeper the flavor, and, surprisingly, the meat comes mainly from the Galician rubia gallega breed. Tolosa adds its almost black alubias de Tolosa beans, served with the "sacraments" (sacramentos): cabbage, chorizo, blood sausage and bacon. Then there's the leek soup porrusalda, the garlic soup zurrukutuna with cod, the stewed peppers piperrada, and at markets and festivals talo - a corn flatbread cooked on a griddle and wrapped around txistorra, a thin fresh sausage similar to chorizo.
And then there are the peppers, which the Basques take as seriously as other regions take their wine. Guindillas de Ibarra, yellowish green and mild, are pickled in vinegar and, besides going into the gilda, are served just as they are, with anything and everything. Pimientos de Gernika are fried whole in oil with salt - most of them aren't hot, but every now and then you hit one that is, which is why people call them Basque Russian roulette. Both carry the Eusko Label quality mark, which the Basque government uses to guarantee the origin of local produce.
The sweet side of the Basque Country is a chapter of its own. The one that has traveled furthest is the burnt cheesecake tarta de queso La Viña - a crustless cake with a caramelized top and a creamy center, which Santiago Rivera came up with in a San Sebastián bar in the late 1980s and which is now baked everywhere from Tokyo to New York. Bilbao has its trio of pastry shop classics - the carolina, the bollo de mantequilla and the pastel de arroz - San Sebastián has the almond pantxineta, Vitoria has the layered goxua, and the French side has the pastel vasco (gâteau basque), filled with pastry cream or black cherry jam. In the countryside they still make mamia - sheep's milk curdled with rennet, traditionally heated with a red-hot stone in a wooden vessel called a kaiku.
What to Eat in the Basque Country
- Pintxos. Little bites from bar counters and the symbol of Basque eating. They were born in San Sebastián in the 1930s and today every bar lives on them; you order by pointing, and in each place you go for whatever it's famous for.
- Gilda. An olive, an anchovy and a guindilla pepper on a toothpick, dipped in olive oil. The first pintxo with a name of its own - it got it from Rita Hayworth's film role.
- Bacalao al pil-pil. Cod cooked slowly in olive oil with garlic, which, together with the gelatin from the fish skin, is whipped into a thick emulsion. The pride of Bilbao's cooking and the technique Basque chefs are judged by.
- Bacalao a la vizcaína. Cod in a sauce of dried choricero peppers and onion. It's named after Biscay; purists won't let even a single tomato near it.
- Tarta de queso La Viña. A burnt cheesecake with a creamy center, known around the world as San Sebastián cheesecake. It was created around 1990 at the La Viña bar, where they still cut slices from whole cakes sitting in the display case.
- Txuleton. A thick-cut rib steak from old cows, grilled over charcoal. The specialty of the asadors, with Tolosa leading the way; charred on the outside and red in the middle.
- Marmitako. A thick fishermen's stew of bonito tuna, potatoes and peppers. It was born on the decks of boats in the Cantabrian Sea, and both its name and its origin come "from the pot".
- Kokotxas. The gelatinous throat pieces of hake or cod, braised al pil-pil, in green sauce or fried. The most delicate part of the fish.
- Txangurro a la donostiarra. Crab meat with vegetables and brandy, baked back in its shell. The recipe was created in the early 20th century by the San Sebastián cook Félix Ibarguren, known as Shishito.
- Merluza en salsa verde. Hake in a green sauce of olive oil, garlic and parsley, thickened only with the collagen from the fish. The "a la koskera" version from San Sebastián adds peas, asparagus and egg.
- Chipirones en su tinta. Baby squid stewed in a jet-black sauce made from their own ink. Bold to look at, but a gentle-tasting dish of the Basque coast.
- Antxoas. Anchovies from the spring catch, filleted by hand and cured in salt for months. They're mostly packed in neighboring Cantabria, but it was the Basque bars that turned them into a cult - two on a slice of bread count as a pintxo in their own right.
- Besugo a la donostiarra. Red sea bream grilled whole and drizzled with a dressing of oil, garlic and vinegar. A festive fish the Basques eat on Christmas Eve.
- Angulas. Translucent baby eels, once the food of poor fishermen from Aguinaga and today the most expensive delicacy in Spain. Most of the country eats gulas instead - a surimi imitation invented by the Basques themselves.
- Alubias de Tolosa. Almost black beans with a thin skin and a creamy texture, cooked with nothing but onion and oil. They're served with the "sacraments": cabbage, chorizo, blood sausage and bacon.
- Piperrada. Stewed peppers with onion and tomatoes, a side for meat, fish and eggs. It's shared with the French side, where it's called piperade and gets its color from Espelette pepper.
- Porrusalda. A leek and potato soup, often with cod. A humble country classic the Basque Country shares with Navarre and La Rioja.
- Zurrukutuna. A garlic soup with cod, bread and egg. The name imitates the sound of slurping - the Basque "zurrupatu" means to slurp.
- Talo. A thin corn flatbread cooked on a griddle, a close cousin of the Mexican tortilla. It used to be a staple on country farmsteads; today it's made at market stalls and festivals, most often with txistorra.
- Txistorra. A thin fresh sausage with paprika and garlic, fried or baked before serving. A specialty shared with Navarre; on December 21, Saint Thomas' Day, people eat it wrapped in talo all over the Basque Country.
- Guindillas de Ibarra. Yellowish green peppers from Ibarra pickled in vinegar, mild and barely hot, with the Eusko Label mark. One third of the gilda and a fixture on bar counters.
- Pimientos de Gernika. Small green peppers fried whole in oil with nothing but salt. Most of them aren't hot - and that "most" is exactly what makes them Basque Russian roulette.
- Perretxikos. Spring mushrooms with a mealy aroma, picked in mountain meadows from April onward. In Álava they're made into revuelto - scrambled eggs - for the feast of San Prudencio.
- Idiazabal. A hard cheese made from the raw milk of latxa mountain sheep, often smoked over beech or cherry wood. The only Spanish cheese with a protected designation of origin that's allowed into the smokehouse; it's served with quince paste and walnuts.
- Mamia. Sheep's milk curdled with rennet, traditionally heated with a red-hot stone in a wooden vessel called a kaiku - which is where its faintly smoky flavor comes from. It's eaten with honey or walnuts.
- Pastel vasco. A shortcrust pastry cake filled with pastry cream or with black cherry jam from Itxassou - the two camps still argue over the right filling. It was born in the 19th century in the spa town of Cambo-les-Bains on the French side.
- Carolina. A puff pastry tartlet with a tall tower of meringue, coated in chocolate and egg yolk glaze. A Bilbao pastry chef supposedly invented it for his daughter Carolina, so she wouldn't get meringue all over herself.
- Bollo de mantequilla. A fluffy brioche bun filled with buttercream. Swiss pastry chefs brought it to Bilbao in the late 19th century, and the city made it its own.
- Pastel de arroz. A crisp tartlet with a creamy filling that, despite its name, contains no rice - the name is a leftover from the days when it was made with rice flour. The third member of Bilbao's pastry trio.
- Pantxineta. Puff pastry with pastry cream and almonds, baked until golden. It was created around 1915 at the Otaegui pastry shop in San Sebastián, back when the city was the summer residence of the Spanish royal family.
- Goxua. A layered dessert of whipped cream, sponge cake, pastry cream and caramel from Vitoria-Gasteiz. Its name is Basque for "sweet" - and it's the odd one out among these traditions: pastry chef Luis López de Sosoaga didn't come up with it until 1976.
- Intxaursalsa. A thick cream of walnuts, milk and sugar, simmered for an hour over low heat. A Christmas dessert from the farmsteads of Gipuzkoa, handed down from mother to daughter.
- Piment d'Espelette. Ground pepper from the French village of Espelette, where strings of peppers are hung to dry right on the fronts of the houses. It seasons just about everything in Iparralde's cooking and carries the AOP protected designation.
- Jambon de Bayonne. A dry-cured ham aged southwest of the Adour River and cured with salt from local springs. The port of Bayonne gave it its name as early as the 17th century.
- Ossau-Iraty. A sheep's milk cheese from the French Pyrenees, half Basque and half Béarnais, as its very name tells you. A softer, creamier cousin of Idiazabal.
- Ttoro. A thick fish soup made by the fishermen of Saint-Jean-de-Luz - into the big pot went everything that hadn't sold that day. Its festival is on France's list of intangible cultural heritage.
- Axoa. Stewed chopped veal with peppers and piment d'Espelette. Espelette and Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port argue over who invented the recipe.
- Txakoli. A light, tart, slightly sparkling white wine from the coast, poured from a height so that it fizzes. Three protected appellations, one grape - Hondarrabi Zuri - and the best companion to pintxos.
- Sagardoa. Basque cider - dry, tart and wild, not one for fans of sweet apple juice. From January through spring, people drink it straight from the barrel in the sidrerías around Astigarraga.
- Kalimotxo. Red wine and cola half and half, with ice and lemon. It got its name in 1972 at the festival in Algorta, where two thousand liters of wine that had gone sour needed to be sold.
- Patxaran. A sloe liqueur with anise, an ice-cold digestif after a good meal. Its birthplace and protected designation are in neighboring Navarre, but the whole Basque Country drinks it.
- … and dozens more Spanish dishes on the list: What to Eat in Spain.
Typical Basque Drinks
The national wine is txakoli - a light, dry, slightly sparkling white wine poured from half a meter up so that it fizzes in the glass. As recently as 1982, there were only 21 hectares of vineyards left in the entire Basque Country; today txakoli has three protected appellations (Getariako, Bizkaiko and Arabako Txakolina) and is poured in every bar. I drank it at a counter in San Sebastián among people who didn't even look up as the bartender poured from just under the ceiling: the first sip was so tart it made my ears tingle, the second already tasted of green apple and a salty bread crust. And it's so light you can move on to the next bar with a clear conscience.
From January through spring, the Basque Country belongs to cider. Sagardoa is a dry, tart apple cider with no frills, drunk according to the txotx ritual: the host calls out, the guests line up at a giant barrel and catch a thin stream straight into glasses held low so the cider gets aerated. The center of it all is Astigarraga near San Sebastián, with more than twenty sidrerías and a cider museum; the menu at these hasn't changed for generations - cod omelet, cod, txuleton and, to finish, Idiazabal with quince paste and walnuts.
For red wine, the Basques head to their very own Rioja. Rioja Alavesa is the Álava subzone of the famous wine appellation: the stone villages of Laguardia and Elciego, tempranillo from poor soils beneath the Sierra de Cantabria mountains, and the Marqués de Riscal bodega with its titanium hotel by Frank Gehry, which looks like a little brother of Bilbao's Guggenheim. Among the more down-to-earth pleasures is kalimotxo - red wine with cola, which I had at the Bergara bar in San Sebastián in a stemmed glass, a good notch classier than it has any right to be. And after a meal comes an ice-cold sloe patxaran; on the French side they pour the herbal liqueur Izarra from Bayonne instead.
Beer in the Basque Country is drunk a little at a time. Zurito is the smallest beer in Spain, roughly 100 ml in a glass - just enough to wash down a pintxo and move on. It got its name in the 1960s from a San Sebastián club of bullfighting fans; its wine counterpart is the txikito. The oldest Basque brand is Keler, founded in San Sebastián by German brewers in 1872 - although these days it's brewed outside the Basque Country. And when you order a coffee, try doing it in Basque: here they call a cortado an ebaki.
The Best Basque Food
If I had to pick three personal favorites, these are the best Basque foods for me:
- Gilda. I first had one at Bodega Donostiarra in the Gros neighborhood, and after that in every bar I walked into. A salty anchovy, a tangy pepper, a peacemaking olive and oil on your fingers - a simplicity that can't be improved on, only washed down.
- The anchovies at the Tamboril bar. This bar in San Sebastián's old town, recommended by the Michelin Guide, served me perfect anchovies on bread and a pintxo with shrimp and anchovy on egg. My most powerful taste memory of the old town.
- Tarta de queso La Viña. Burnt cheesecake right where it was born, at the La Viña bar on Calle 31 de Agosto - the owner himself, Santiago Rivera, brought my slice over. The burnt parts tasted of caramel, the center was almost runny, and the two fit together exactly the way the sign above the entrance promised.
How to Enjoy Basque Food to the Fullest
- Go bar-hopping like the Basques - on a txikiteo. In each bar, one small glass (a txikito of wine, a zurito of beer or a txakoli), one or two of the pintxos the place is famous for, and on you go. You stand at the counter and order by pointing; sit down at a table and you miss both the show and the chance to see what the locals are having. For where to start, see the Where to Eat sections on the Bilbao and San Sebastián pages.
- Visit a market. Bilbao's Erriberako merkatua market hall on the banks of the Nervión is in Guinness World Records, on Wednesdays people head to the market in Ordizia, where Idiazabal cheese is sold and even auctioned, and Gernika has held its Monday market since the 14th century. Look for labels with a little Basque flag on the produce - they mark local origin.
- In winter and spring, head to a sidrería. The txotx season runs roughly from January to April: cider flows straight from the barrels, the menu is set (cod omelet, cod, txuleton, cheese) and you eat at long communal tables. The epicenter is Astigarraga, a stone's throw from San Sebastián.
- Have the menú del día where the locals eat lunch. The midday fixed-price lunch menu is the cheapest ticket into Basque cuisine: at the Iñakiren tavern in Bilbao I got beans, cod with tomatoes, Idiazabal with quince paste and a whole bottle of wine on the table to go with it.
- For txuleton, go to an asador. These steakhouses (erretegiak in Basque) grill over charcoal and the meat is ordered by weight; the benchmark is Casa Julián in Tolosa. In Getaria, instead of meat, they grill whole fish over charcoal - one of the reasons food lovers come from all over the world.
- Accept that you won't get into a txoko. The members-only gastronomic clubs, where only the members cook, are where Basque cuisine is at its most authentic - and that's exactly why no amount of money will get you in. Your only option is to make a Basque friend.
- Come for the food festivals. On December 21, Saint Thomas' Day, San Sebastián and Bilbao smell of talo with txistorra, in December Gipuzkoa also celebrates Gilda Day, and on January 20 all of San Sebastián beats drums at the tamborrada, which is organized by none other than the gastronomic clubs.
How to Say Thank You for Basque Food
The Spanish "gracias" will of course do everywhere, but Basque will earn you twice the smiles: "eskerrik asko" (ess-keh-REEK AHS-koh) - thank you very much is the most important phrase you'll learn in the Basque Country. Before a meal people wish each other "on egin" - enjoy your meal, when you raise a glass of txakoli or cider you say "topa!" - cheers, and if you enjoyed the food, say "oso ona" - very good. To ask for txakoli, say "txakolina, mesedez" - and don't forget that every tx is pronounced "ch". Basque has no known linguistic relatives, so these four phrases are an achievement the locals will appreciate.
Regional Basque Cuisine and Specialties
San Sebastián and Gipuzkoa
Donostia is the capital of Basque gastronomy: old-town bars full of pintxos, the burnt cheesecake from La Viña, txangurro, pantxineta and, on top of that, a density of Michelin stars per capita that reportedly has no equal anywhere in the world. Anthony Bourdain loved it too - on Parts Unknown he declared that there's no better place to eat in Europe, and his cameras even made it into the kitchen of a txoko gastronomic club, where ordinary mortals aren't allowed. The rest of the province keeps pace: Tolosa with its beans and txuleton, Getaria with grilled fish and txakoli wine, Astigarraga with cider, Ordizia with a Wednesday market more than five hundred years old, and the village of Idiazabal gave its name to the cheese made from latxa sheep's milk.
Bilbao and Bizkaia
Bilbao is a cod city - it claims both bacalao al pil-pil and a la vizcaína - and the birthplace of txikiteo, the round of bars with small glasses that was born in the lanes of the Casco Viejo. Add to that the Art Nouveau Erriberako merkatua market hall on the banks of the Nervión and pastry shops with carolinas, bollos de mantequilla and pasteles de arroz. As for the rest of the province: Gernika grows its famous peppers and has held its Monday market since 1366, Algorta near Getxo came up with the name kalimotxo, marmitako comes from Bermeo and the coastal ports, and the railway workers of Balmaseda cooked beans with steam from their locomotives in a pot called a putxera - the putxera cook-off there is the oldest gastronomic competition in Spain.
Álava and Vitoria-Gasteiz
Inland Álava is the least touristy and most agricultural part of the Basque Country. The capital, Vitoria-Gasteiz, gave Basque cuisine the goxua dessert, and on the feast of San Prudencio the whole province eats scrambled eggs with perretxikos spring mushrooms. To the south lies the wine country of Rioja Alavesa with Laguardia and Elciego, and to the west Salinas de Añana - salt pans thousands of years old, where fleur de sel is still harvested today.
Navarre
Neighboring Navarre isn't strictly speaking part of the Basque Country, but culturally it belongs to the Basque lands, and on the plate the two cuisines flow into each other: the sloe liqueur patxaran has its birthplace and protected designation in Navarre, txistorra is a shared heritage of both, and the famous roasted pimientos del piquillo peppers come from Lodosa in Navarre. Navarre's white asparagus, though, is something not even the Basques lay claim to.
The French Basque Country (Iparralde)
Across the border in France, Basque cuisine carries on without a passport: Bayonne became famous for its dry-cured ham and for chocolate, brought here in the 16th century by Sephardic Jews fleeing the Inquisition, strings of AOP-protected peppers dry on the house fronts of Espelette, and Cambo-les-Bains is the birthplace of the pastel vasco (gâteau basque), filled with pastry cream or jam made from black cherries from Itxassou. The fishermen of Saint-Jean-de-Luz make ttoro soup, the inland areas make axoa, a chopped veal stew, and up in the mountains the sheep's milk cheese Ossau-Iraty ages, half Basque and half Béarnais.
Famous Basque Chefs
- Juan Mari Arzak (1942) and Elena Arzak. Father and daughter behind the Arzak restaurant in San Sebastián, which has held three Michelin stars without a break since 1989. In 1976 Juan Mari co-founded the New Basque Cuisine movement, which put Basque gastronomy back at the top of the world; today he's retired and the kitchen is run by the fourth generation of the family - Elena.
- Pedro Subijana (1948). The other co-founder of New Basque Cuisine runs the Akelarre restaurant on the slopes of Mount Igueldo above San Sebastián; it has held three stars since 2007. In 1976 he and Arzak traveled to Lyon to see Paul Bocuse - and turned French nouvelle cuisine into a Basque revolution.
- Martín Berasategui (1960). The most decorated chef in Spain, whose flagship restaurant in Lasarte-Oria near San Sebastián has held three stars since 2001 and whose empire of restaurants stretches from Barcelona to Lisbon. He's reportedly a member of one of the txoko clubs - probably the only way to get a star chef cooking for you for free.
- Andoni Luis Aduriz (1971). His two-star Mugaritz in Errenteria is the most experimental restaurant in the Basque Country - the tasting menu here tends to be more of a performance than a dinner, and it divides critics and diners alike.
- Eneko Atxa (1977). His Azurmendi in Larrabetzu near Bilbao holds three stars and keeps topping sustainability rankings - it comes with a greenhouse farm and a local seed bank.
- Bittor Arginzoniz. A self-taught cook from the hills who, at Asador Etxebarri in Atxondo, grills everything from butter to ice cream over charcoal he makes himself. His asador has long ranked among the very best restaurants in the world - in The World's 50 Best 2025 ranking it came second.
Basque Michelin Restaurants
According to the 2026 Michelin Guide, Basque restaurants hold 36 stars, the most per capita of any Spanish region. There are four three-star restaurants: Arzak and Akelarre in San Sebastián, Martín Berasategui in Lasarte-Oria and Azurmendi in Larrabetzu; Mugaritz and Amelia in San Sebastián hold two stars. San Sebastián alone has eleven stars across six restaurants, and it's often said that no place in the world can match its density of stars per resident. Since 2011 the city has also been home to the Basque Culinary Center, the first university faculty of gastronomy in Spain. In the end, I didn't go to a starred restaurant in the Basque Country - I was drawn to the counters full of pintxos and to the bars the Michelin Guide recommends right alongside its stars.
Interesting Facts About Basque Food
- The Basques were eating cod from Newfoundland before Europe knew where Newfoundland was. Basque whalers and fishermen were sailing across the Atlantic for cod and whales from the early 16th century, and they learned to salt fish from the Vikings around the 10th century. Salt cod kept for years - and it became the backbone of Basque cuisine, even though it's caught thousands of kilometers away.
- A typo supposedly saved Bilbao from starvation. City legend has it that a merchant named Gurtubay received more than a million cod because of a typo in a telegram - and when the Carlists later laid siege to the city, people lived off his warehouses. Historians don't buy the legend, but Bilbao and cod go together even without it.
- No amount of money will get you into a txoko gastronomic club. In these private societies with their own kitchens, only members cook, and they note down what they've consumed in a notebook; there are hundreds of them in the autonomous Basque Country alone, and the oldest is San Sebastián's Unión Artesana from 1870. The waiting list runs for years, and membership is passed down from parents to children - there's only one way in: an invitation.
- The most famous pintxo is named after a Hollywood role. The gilda was first skewered by a regular at the Casa Vallés tavern in San Sebastián in the 1940s, and it got its name from Rita Hayworth in the film Gilda - supposedly because, like her, it was "green, salty and a little spicy".
- Kalimotxo was born out of necessity. In August 1972, the organizers of the festival in Algorta discovered that two thousand liters of the red wine they'd bought had gone bad - so they mixed it with cola and named the concoction after a friend nicknamed Kalimero. Spaniards had been drinking wine with cola long before that; the Basques gave it a name that stuck.
- Angulas, or baby eels, used to be poor people's food; today they're Spain's most expensive delicacy. The eel population has collapsed by more than ninety percent and fishing is strictly limited - so the Basque company Angulas Aguinaga developed a surimi substitute. Its brand La Gula del Norte took Christmas 1991 by storm in a single week.
- Cheese in Ordizia is auctioned like art. At the Wednesday market, held in Ordizia since 1512, every September brings the climax of the Idiazabal cheese competition - half of the winning wheel goes up for public auction, and prices keep climbing year after year. The proceeds support the shepherds.
- Bilbao's market hall is in Guinness World Records. In 1990 Erriberako merkatua on the banks of the Nervión was recorded as the most complete municipal market in the world - and the record has never been re-measured since.
- Salt has been harvested in Añana for thousands of years. The Valle Salado salt pans in Añana, Álava, are among the oldest continuously operating salt works in the world - salty springs flow across the terraces through wooden channels, and the salt is harvested by hand just as it was in Roman times.
- Chocolate reached France via Bayonne, carried by Jews. Sephardic chocolate makers fleeing the Inquisition settled on the outskirts of Bayonne in the 16th century and taught the city the craft - until the local guild pushed them out in 1691. Bayonne is still France's chocolate city today.
- Burnt cheesecake conquered the world from a single bar. Santiago Rivera of La Viña in San Sebastián reportedly spent two years perfecting the recipe; The New York Times then named his cake one of the flavors of 2021, and "San Sebastián cheesecake" is now baked everywhere from Tokyo to New York.
Enjoy the Basque Country and the best Basque food!
Txokos: The Members-Only Basque Gastronomic Clubs
A txoko is a members-only Basque gastronomic club: a society with its own kitchen and a long table, a place where the members do the cooking, the pouring and the tallying up of what they ate. The Basque Country has over 1,500 of them, the oldest one still running dates to 1870, and under Franco you could hear Basque in them when it was silenced everywhere else. The only way in is an invitation from a member - I never got one.
Txikiteo: The Basque Bar Crawl
Txikiteo is the Basque habit of doing the rounds of the bars with your friends and having one small glass of wine (txikito) or beer (zurito) at the counter of each, along with a pintxo the place is famous for. The name means going out for small ones. The habit is older than pintxos and it spread from Bilbao to Navarre and La Rioja. How txikiteo works, who pays and why you should read the whole board.
Patxaran: The Sloe Liqueur of Navarre and the Basque Country
Patxaran is a liqueur of wild sloes steeped for months in anise spirit - a deep ruby, sweet, ice-cold digestif drunk all over Spain. The name is Basque, but the protected designation Pacharán Navarro belongs to Navarre. What "de Arañón" on the label means, why the legend about the monks doesn't hold up, and how it tasted after a tasting menu in Alicante.
Erriberako Merkatua: The Covered Market in Bilbao on the Banks of the Nervión
Erriberako merkatua, Mercado de la Ribera in Spanish, is the covered market in Bilbao on the bank of the river Nervión: a concrete hall from 1929 that people call a ship for its long, narrow shape. There has been a market on the site since the 14th century - fish and seafood downstairs, cured meats and cheeses above them, and a whole floor of bars serving pintxos. You can tell Basque produce by the little flag on the price tag.
Kalimotxo: The Basque Name for Wine and Cola
Kalimotxo is cheap red wine and cola in equal parts, with ice and a slice of lemon - back home we know the same drink as houba. People had been mixing wine and cola in Spain long before that, but the name came from a crew in Getxo who had two thousand liters of wine turn sour on them in August 1972. How kalimotxo is drunk at Basque festivals, why it has two spellings, and how it tasted in the sun outside a bar in San Sebastián.
Txakoli: The Gently Sparkling White Wine of the Basque Country
Txakoli is a light, dry, gently sparkling white wine from the Basque coast of Spain, made mostly from the Hondarrabi Zuri grape. The name supposedly comes from farmers who said they had made "just enough for the house", and in 1982 the whole Basque Country had only 21 hectares of vineyards left. Today people drink it cold and young, poured from a height so that it fizzes, most often with pintxos.
Gilda: A Basque Pintxo of Olive, Anchovy, and Pickled Pepper
Gilda is a simple Basque pintxo: a green olive, an anchovy fillet and a pickled guindilla pepper. It was born at the Casa Vallés wine bar in San Sebastián and took its name from the Rita Hayworth film, because it's green, salty and a little spicy. Today it's served in bars all over Spain; you eat it standing up, whole, with a beer or a vermouth.
Idiazabal: Smoked Sheep's Cheese from the Basque Country and Navarre
Idiazabal is a hard cheese made from the raw milk of Basque latxa sheep, aged at least two months, and the only Spanish cheese with a protected designation of origin that's allowed to be smoked. It takes its name from a village below the Aralar mountains, though it's made across the whole Basque Country and Navarre. What's true about its eight thousand years of history, why it's smoked, and how a wheel from a Spanish supermarket tasted.
Tarta de Queso La Viña: The Burnt Cheesecake from San Sebastián
Tarta de queso from the La Viña bar in San Sebastián is a crustless cake of cream cheese, eggs, sugar and cream, baked in a fierce oven so the top blackens and the middle stays almost liquid. Santiago Rivera worked the recipe out in the late 1980s after two years of trying; from a single pintxos bar it spread to cafes all over the world as the Basque burnt cheesecake.