Gerald Diffey’s guide to San Sebastián

Akerbeltz

Akerbeltz is a little underground dive bar that plays great music. It’s got a small terrace overlooking the port, which I think is one of the nicest places to drink outside in San Sebastián, and they’ve got a very strong list of craft beers, something like 30 of them now, many of them local. The music is soul, rock and roll and a bit of ska – in other words, the music I like.

Calle Mari 19, +34 94 345 1452

Dry Bar

This is the fanciest cocktail bar in town, a place where you can drink Belle Époque by the glass, or count on getting a very well-made Martini. It has that old hotel-bar charm. The styling is modern, but it’s very traditional in its delivery, which I like. It’s not about mixology; it’s about classicism, harking back to an era of elegance and panache.

Hotel Maria Cristina, Paseo Republica Argentina 4, +34 94 343 7600, [dry-sansebastián.com](/ dry-sansebastian.com)

Paco Bueno, empanadillas de atún and gambas en gabardina

This is a stand-up pintxos bar run by the sons of a famous Basque boxer, Paco Bueno, and it’s hung with pictures of him and his various opponents back in the day. They do fried prawns on sticks, gambas en gabardina, that’s almost like tempura, and for two prawns on a stick you’ll pay 1.50 euro or something ridiculous like that. I can’t walk past it without ordering some. They bring out hot prawns fresh every 10 minutes the whole time they’re open, and you just bash two or three little beers or white wines, and walk out happy. It’s a wonderful thing. Forget going to the chip shop for a dimmie – go to Paco Bueno and have a prawn.

Calle Mayor 6, +34 94 342 4495

Borda Berri exterior

It looks like a classic pintxos bar – a small, brightly lit, stand-up space – except there’s no pintxos on the bar. The food is inventive, it’s all cooked to order and it gets really rammed when they’re busy. The house specialty is raciones – dishes roughly the size of a bread and butter plate – and they’re served with cutlery, where a pintxo would normally be something you’d eat with your hands. They do a good pig’s ear with chimichurri (or, as they call it, tximitxurri), an outstanding raviolo of wild mushrooms on mushroom sauce, and they’re also very well known for their veal cheek. They cook it in a mirepoix with Pedro Ximénez for hours, then they blitz that mirepoix into a sauce and pour it on top. These guys’ small plates might well be the best quality in the Old Town.

Calle Fermin Calbeton 12, +34 94 343 0342

Casa Cámara

This is a magical place. I think it was in 1884 that one of the owner’s ancestors set the place up. I’d say she’s the other side of 75, and runs it with her daughter, but she’s still very hands-on and going strong. It’s on the outskirts of San Sebastián in Pasajes San Juan, or Pasaia, a little 16th-century town on a harbour. You cross the water in a small boat that takes you from San Pedro to San Juan in about a minute. It’s unique – one of the great seafood restaurants of the world. The building sits right on the waterfront, and its basement floods twice a day with the tide, so the owners use it to store their live seafood, which they bring up in a cage into the dining room with a pulley. When you’re sitting at the table and you see someone haul your live lobsters, crabs or crayfish dripping with sea water out of the basement, you know you’re in for something special.

The cooking is very simple but they know what they’re doing. You won’t eat a better lobster anywhere. Order the parrillada – a platter of grilled seafood, usually with some razor clams, langoustines, tiny crabs and red prawns in the mix. For people from Australia who rarely see a plate of seafood of that quality, for 37 euros, you’re saying to yourself “this would be 200 euros if I could get it in Australia, and I can’t”. And all their seafood dishes are great, the simple magic of the plancha with garlic, salt and olive oil.

Calle San Juan 79, Pasai Donibane, +34 94 352 3699

San Sebastián Food

This cooking school, attached to the Maria Cristina hotel, opened last year and it’s very well done. The equipment and the stations where you work are all immaculate, new and beautiful, and the classes are well-designed and multilingual. If you wanted to get deeper into Basque food culture, and get your hands dirty with a cooking experience, this is where you’d go.

Calle Okendo 1, +34 94 342 1143, [sansebastiánfood.com](/ sansebastianfood.com)

Gaztagune Elkano 1

This shop is run by a local cheesemaker who’s in business with an Italian expat, so there’s a nice blend here of beautifully handmade local cheeses and some of the softer varieties of cheese from just across the border in France, and he’s got the best Parmigiano-Reggiano he can find in Italy. The joy of the shop is mostly the sheep’s milk semi-hard cheeses that he makes himself. They’re phenomenal delights. And if you want to try any of the other cheeses that the Basque country is known for, they’re all here. It’s the Neal’s Yard Dairy of San Sebastián – everything chosen with care, everything in peak condition.

Calle Elkano 1, [elkano1.com](/ elkano1.com)

Estebenea

Estebenea, which my children like to call Gloria Estefan, is a little way out of town, but absolutely worth the effort. It’s near Irun, on the French border, and it’s about half an hour in a cab, which will cost you about 20 euros, so get a gang together to do it properly. It’s a traditional country family restaurant on a stream, and you sit in the shade of big trees and drink from an interesting wine list – not big, but savvy – with some cool beers as well. The food is hearty – roast chicken, or codillo, for instance, where a whole ham hock is boiled and then roasted and becomes beautiful hammy goodness. You may not be surprised to learn they also do a chuleta, but it’s one of the very good ones, a very big steak you order to share that comes out on a bed of fried potatoes. It’s the perfect place to escape a hot day – all locals, very relaxed, just a nice hang.

Barrio Olaberria 51, Irun, +34 94 362 1962, [estebenea.com](/ estebenea.com)

A Fuego Negro

These guys have been here a while, and their menu doesn’t change much, but the dial is fixed firmly towards the molecular – green olives filled with sweet vermouth jelly served in clear plastic egg cartons, things in shot glasses, savoury ice-creams – and they’ve got a look to match, with plenty of neon and bold graphics. The thing you want is the Mackobe. The name is a fairly weak play on “Kobe beef” and “McDonalds”, and it’s just a Basque take on a miniature wagyu hamburger at heart, but it’s a pretty good bit of ballast on a bar-hop. Two bites and you’re done. And they play really good music.

Calle 31 de Agosto, +34 65 013 5373, [afuegonegro.com](/ afuegonegro.com)

Gerald Diffey at his bar in San Sebastián

Gerald’s, our bar in Melbourne, is all about discovering new, interesting wines, and eating at any level that you feel comfortable with, whether that’s just a snack or a feast. At heart it’s a wine bar with food and great music. You’ll hear a lot of ska, soul, funk and R&B records: Jackie Mittoo, Marlena Shaw, Gil Scott-Heron, a lot of straight-ahead jazz – Miles Davis and John Coltrane – as well as a bit of Siouxsie and the Banshees thrown in. In other words, all the things I like. An eclectic mix of passionate music. And that’s what we’ve brought to San Sebastián, only with more food, and in the summer season we also open through the day. We’re one of the only bars in San Sebastián that makes its coffee with real milk rather than UHT, too, so we’ve become a bit of a hub for travellers in that regard.

We’re in Gros, which has very much a locals’ vibe, but it’s also an area where visitors like to call in regularly to get the lay of the land.We didn’t want to copy what San Sebastián already does, so we don’t do pintxos, the local take on tapas – they do plenty of that and they do it well – we just wanted to use the fantastic local produce and put our own spin on it. I don’t know how to describe our cuisine except to say we go to the market, we look at nice things and we make them into food. We’re playing with some classics, like our steak tartare, and Nick Hughes, our chef, does things like make beautiful fresh rag pasta and tosses it with porcini from up in the hills here, some fried and left in pieces, others turned into a light purée. He also does a lovely prawn rillettes, which we serve with toast, and when we can get them he does the same thing with fresh anchovies. It doesn’t get much better than fresh Basque anchovies and wine.

Iparragirre 13, Gros, +34 94 308 3001, [geraldsbar.eu](/ geraldsbar.eu)

The Loaf’s CEO Andoni Munduate with a loaf of the bakery’s sourdough

These guys opened their bakery maybe six months before Gerald’s Bar opened last year, so we’re both relatively new additions to our neighbourhood in Gros. I like it because they’ve got the most modern of bread-making equipment to make the most traditional sourdough, and they’re doing it really well. The backbone of the business is crusty, beautiful loaves, but they’re also passionate about their coffee, with a barista there full-time, and there’s also a little bistro downstairs doing full meals. The same people did a pop-up a few years ago with Dan Lepard [the acclaimed Australian-born, London-based baker], and he’s been instrumental in encouraging them in their approach to modern baking. It’s a great place.

Zurriola Hiribidea 18, +34 94 326 5030, [theloaf.es](/ theloaf.es)

Gandarias

A pintxos bar, yes, but Gandarias also has a good sit-down restaurant, and after a few days of standing up in bars everywhere, you’re grateful for a seat. And they serve the full dinner menu at 11 o’clock at night. They specialise in the classics – chuleta, crab, and their salt cod is good, too – but the nice thing about it is you can take your time and chill out and eat. In San Sebastián a lot of the places serve pretty much the same things, but it’s a matter of knowing what to have where. The other thing about San Sebastián restaurants is that they’re all protein-driven: you eat vegetables at home. Finding a salad that’s just a salad can be difficult. Gandarias has good product across the board. Their jamón is exceptional, and they have an excellent wine list; they’ve got wines with some real age on them. If you want to drink one great Rioja while you’re in town, and pay a reasonable amount of money for it, this is a fine place to do so.

Calle 31 de Agosto 23, +34 94 342 6362, [restaurantegandarias.com](/ restaurantegandarias.com)

La Cuchara de San Telmo

The secret here is that these guys get their plancha, the hotplate, really, really hot. Their foie gras is something of a signature, and the thing that sets it apart is the way they manage to get a really nice crust on it when they sear it, leaving it gooey inside. Delicious. The salt cod is also really something. They do it simply, with a green sauce but again their plancha being really hot makes all the difference, and they get a nice caramelisation on it. They don’t rinse the cod too much, so it’s still got a nice saltiness, but it’s not too salty. A lot of the salt cod in San Sebastián will taste very salty to Australian palates, but these guys nail the balance.

Calle del Treinta y Uno de Agosto 28, [lacucharadesantelmo.com](/ lacucharadesantelmo.com)

Hotel Maria Cristina

Ostentatious, expensive – pretty much what you’d expect of the high end of town in a European beach resort. The bar is excellent. And the beds! They’re some of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept in. The rooms are beautiful, the service is grand. It’s opulent, it’s flash, it does what it says on the tin.

Paseo Republica Argentina 4, +34 94 343 7600, [hotel-mariacristina.com](/ hotel-mariacristina.com)

Bar Nestor

Nestor is one of those classic, old-school places that has two things on the menu that everyone orders. It’s famous for its tortilla, of course, but you could spend a month in San Sebastián arguing about who’s got the best tortilla; Nestor is definitely on the list, but I reckon the one we serve at Gerald’s is right up there as well. Anyway, I always get the chuleta and the tomato salad – they do both really well. The chuleta is a rib-eye cut thick, generally weighing in at around 1.2 kilos. All the good bars in San Sebastián go to great pains with the sourcing of their beef, and the reputation for quality at Nestor is well deserved. It’s done on a hot char-grill and served rare – really rare – crisp on the outside, covered in chunks of salt, with pink, delicious beef on the inside. They have a really good selection of Rioja wines, too – crianzas and reservas. One of the things that distinguishes Nestor (apart from the fact it’s run by these very happy, funny old Basque guys who seem to revel in their work) is that you can get a decent bottle of Rioja with your big steak and a great salad of just beefsteak tomatoes, oil and salt. You stand in the street eating and drinking, and it’s an experience.

Calle Pescaderia 11, +34 94 342 4873

Atari

This is one of the few bars in the Old Town that has a large area outside with tables and chairs. It’s opposite the cathedral in a little plaza, and there really aren’t that many plazas in San Sebastián, so it’s just a great place for hanging out and people-watching. Some people take issue with the attitude of the staff, and think they’re a bit jaded, but honestly, they’re so busy, and they put out a very good product and it’s a delightful spot. The octopus is the thing here – a classic octopus and potatoes. At Gerald’s we confit our octopus first; Atari’s seems to just be grilled, but it’s beautifully tender, so I think it just comes down to quality octopus. Their pintxos off the bar are also reliable. They’ll just be things like jamón on bread, but it’ll be good jamón and a good piece of bread. It’s a cut above.

Calle Mayor 18, +34 94 344 0792

Beltza Records

Beltza means “black” in Basque, and the owner of this store specialises, if you like, in black music: soul, funk, reggae. He has a wide variety of pretty much everything, but he specialises in good R&B and rock and roll. All the good stuff. It’s just a kooky little place where you can crate-dig to your heart’s content. You’re more than likely to see Beltza vinyl at Gerald’s, too.

Calle San Juan 9, +34 94 343 0669, [beltzarecords.com](/ beltzarecords.com)