What to Eat in San Sebastián
San Sebastián (Donostia in Basque) is a seaside city in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa. It has a reputation as the best place to eat in all of Spain. I'll happily put my name to that: nowhere else in Spain have I eaten as well as here. The city on La Concha Bay is the capital of Basque cooking - and to me, that's the very best Spanish food has to offer.
The city's fame rests on two worlds at once: the bars of the Parte Vieja old town, their counters piled with pintxos, and Michelin-starred restaurants. There are very few places in the world where you can eat this well for a few euros or for a whole paycheck - with both just a few hundred meters apart.
Pintxos Bars: How to Eat in San Sebastián
A bar counter in San Sebastián is one long display case holding dozens of pintxos, small bites skewered on toothpicks. You order by pointing: that one with the shrimp, that one with the crab, that one with the egg. Add a small glass - a txikito of wine, a zurito of beer, or the local sparkling txakoli - and then it's on to the next bar. This kind of bar-hopping is called txikiteo, and in San Sebastián it's the most natural way to have dinner: at each place you order whatever that place is famous for, and you never stay longer than one drink.
What's more, these little skewered bites to go with wine were born right here: bars started setting them out on their counters in the 1930s, and the rest of the Basque Country only followed later. The name of the country's smallest beer comes from here too - zurito is named after a Donostia club of bullfighting fans. And the city is also where the txoko comes from, a members-only Basque gastronomic club where only members cook and outsiders never get through the door. I speak from experience: nobody invited me in either. 😊
Michelin Stars and Anthony Bourdain
San Sebastián has one of the highest concentrations of Michelin stars per capita in the world: as of September 2026, six of its restaurants hold eleven stars between them. There are two three-star mainstays - Arzak, run by the Arzak family, pioneers of New Basque Cuisine, and Akelarre, chef Pedro Subijana's restaurant on the slopes of Mount Igueldo. They're joined by two-star Amelia and by iBAi, Kokotxa and Itzuli, with one star each. In the end I didn't make it to a starred restaurant in San Sebastián - the pintxos counters won me over. I stuck to the bars that the Michelin Guide recommends right alongside its stars, and I still remember the perfect anchovies at Tamboril.
Anthony Bourdain fell for the city too. He kept coming back, and in a 2017 episode of Parts Unknown he declared that there's no better place to eat in Europe than San Sebastián. He was a longtime friend of the Arzak family, and the cameras of his show even went where ordinary visitors can't - into the kitchen of a txoko gastronomic club.
What to Eat in San Sebastián
- Pintxos. Small bites from the bar counters and the symbol of the city. Bars right here in San Sebastián started setting them out on the counter to go with wine back in the 1930s, and to this day every bar in the old town lives by them.
- Tarta de queso La Viña. A burnt cheesecake with a creamy center, known around the world as San Sebastián cheesecake. It was born around 1990 at La Viña, a bar in the old town, and they still slice it from whole cakes in the display case.
- Gilda. An olive, an anchovy and a guindilla pepper on a toothpick - the first pintxo to get a name of its own. It was created in the 1940s at Casa Vallés, a local wine bar, and it's named after Rita Hayworth's film role.
- Txakoli. A light, gently sparkling white wine poured from half a meter up to bring out the fizz. The Getariako Txakolina protected designation begins just outside the city, and in San Sebastián's bars a glass of txakoli with a gilda is simply a given.
- Antxoas. Anchovies, the pride of the local counters. They're caught and cured in neighboring Cantabria, but it was the bars of San Sebastián that turned them into a cult - here, two top-quality anchovies on a slice of bread make a pintxo in their own right.
- Zurito. Spain's smallest beer, about 100 ml in a glass. It got its name in the 1960s from a Donostia club of bullfighting fans, and it's as much a part of txikiteo as pintxos are.
- Tortilla de patatas. A classic eaten all over Spain that the local Bar Néstor has turned into a city-wide event: it makes just two tortillas a day, cuts each one into twelve slices, and people line up for them an hour in advance.
- … and dozens more Basque dishes on the list: What to Eat in the Basque Country.
Where to Eat in San Sebastián
- La Viña. A pintxos bar on 31 de Agosto Street in the old town and the birthplace of burnt cheesecake. The owner himself, Santiago Rivera, brought me my slice. Come in the morning, right after it opens - I got my cheesecake before a line had time to form outside.
- Bodega Donostiarra. A traditional bodega in the Gros neighborhood, a short walk from Zurriola, the surf beach. I had a gilda here and the well-known Indurain pintxo, named after the legendary cyclist. I recommend both.
- Bar Tamboril. A bar in the old town right by Plaza de la Constitución, recommended by the Michelin Guide. The anchovies on bread were perfect, and so was the pintxo with shrimp and anchovy on egg. My most vivid food memory of the old town.
- Bergara. An award-winning pintxos bar in Gros with a few tables outside. At one of them I ate several pintxos, had a sangria, followed straight away by a kalimotxo. I arrived a tourist and left a local.
If good food has a capital city, it lies on the shores of La Concha Bay.
Enjoy eating your way around San Sebastián!
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.