Txakoli Pulpo
May 16-25, 2024
After nine years of consistent traveling, we’ve covered quite a bit of ground in Europe and abroad. As a result, our more-expensive excursions these days are particularly focused on filling in the remaining “gaps” in our dream itineraries. Starting with our trip in the fall of 2023 to Japan and then Thailand earlier this year, we have been making a concerted effort to finally cross off travel destinations that have remained at the top of our list for years. When Becky and Brian asked where we would like to go on their annual European pilgrimage this year, it seemed like the perfect excuse to finally make our way to San Sebastián, Spain: the food mecca of Europe. With more Michelin-starred restaurants per capita than anywhere else on Earth, Basque country has always called out to us. The main reason we haven’t visited before now is that Northern Spain is a genuine pain in the ass to reach from Berlin.
Since Becky and Brian were going to be visiting for two weeks, we had ample time to add another locale to the trip. Aside from looking both beautiful and fun, the Netherlands offered two more added bonuses: It was the last country in Western Europe that Mazz had not yet visited, and there were cheap, direct flights between Amsterdam and Bilbao, the closest airport to San Sebastián. We planned four nights in Holland and four nights in Spain, sent out some reservation requests to a couple of fancy restaurants in Basque country, and waited patiently for our beloved family members to arrive in Berlin.
We’ve been dealing with some major issues in our apartment for years now, so of course our landlords decided to finally start ripping out and repairing the walls in our bedroom the very moment we had houseguests. Thankfully, the weather was nice and having five Polish men tearing apart our drywall was a good excuse to get outside and enjoy the sunny spring weather. We barbequed with friends by the canal, went to flea markets, and ate schnitzel - lots of fun Berlin stuff. As an added bonus, our mutual bud Josh was visiting Berlin from France, as was another old Portland friend, Caleb. Though our schedules unfortunately only allowed one night of hanging out in Berlin together, we had a lovely evening drinking wine, eating Yemeni food, and reminiscing with long-time friends about the good old days in Oregon.
The Netherlands
In the interest of time, we generally prefer flying over long-distance trains. It’s a quick 1-1/2-hour flight between Berlin and Amsterdam, or a six-hour train ride, but on this trip we opted for the train and were glad that we did. Despite the shorter flight time, you still inevitably spend a lot of time getting in and out of airports, and airports are objectively terrible. The six hours on the train breezed by thanks to ample snacks and good conversation, and before we knew it, we had passed through Amsterdam and arrived in its nearby neighbor, Haarlem.
In general, the Netherlands is a lovely place to visit. But there is one thing about traveling to the country that is a particularly big obstacle: Thanks to having Europe’s highest tourist taxes, the Netherlands is now the most expensive place in the EU to find lodging. Even months ahead of the trip, booking.com was listing hotels for four in Amsterdam at a minimum of €750 per night! Airbnb was definitely the cheaper option, and it became clear that it was much more affordable to stay outside of Amsterdam and then take the train in and out of the city. Staying in Haarlem saved us quite a bit of cash in exchange for a 15-minute train ride, but even so, it cost a minimum of €300 a night to stay just about anywhere in Holland. On top of that exorbitant price, our hosts in Haarlem asked us to do some shady “reorganizing” of our Airbnb booking to have one of the nights off the books and paid in cash; apparently even homeowners in Holland are only allowed to rent out their flat nine nights per month. The hosts offered us a discount if we helped them game the system, and we begrudgingly agreed. We were willing to take any discount on lodging we could get.
Thankfully, the flat we rented was a genuinely cool, modern apartment that felt superior to our place in Berlin in just about every way, so at least we got to feel like our money wasn’t entirely being set on fire. Haarlem is a cute little suburb with its own small old town located a short walk from our flat. As we strolled through the downtown area, we noticed lots of people sitting outside, eating fries. Before long we wanted fries too, so that’s what we ate for dinner. They were delicious, and we understood why everyone was eating them.
The next morning, we took the 15-minute train back into Amsterdam and laughed at the idea that we had been “priced out” into the suburbs; you can’t even get halfway across Berlin in that short amount of time. Becky had booked us a lunch reservation at a restaurant called De Kas which a friend had recommended, but we weren’t going in with particularly high expectations. The food in Holland had been described to us by one of Mazz’s co-workers as “expensive and bland but substantial.” To our delight, every single thing we ate at De Kas was delicious, and at €50 a head for a 5-course meal, it was a relative bargain to boot. Made with locally-sourced ingredients, many of which were grown in the attached garden, every dish at De Kas was fresh, innovative, and genuinely tasty. You simply can’t find food that good at that price point in either Berlin or California.
Another pleasant surprise in Amsterdam was the shopping. We have a hard time finding any clothes we want to buy in Berlin, but Amsterdam was full of shops we wanted to go inside and explore. Mazz found her store, in which she wanted to buy every article of clothing inside, settling eventually on a puke-green and mustard-yellow sparkly short-sleeved sweater: her “perfect” piece of clothing. We barely had time to scratch the surface of the Amsterdam shopping scene before it was time to head to our reservation for an evening boat tour of the city’s canals.
We were joined by three other visiting Americans on our small boat as we were given a guided tour of the city’s waterways and strange buildings. Becky immediately sniffed one of them out as a fellow tax specialist and they got to chatting in industry jargon the rest of us couldn’t understand. There was a dog onboard and it made an already-enjoyable voyage that much more pleasurable.
For the next two nights, we moved to the charming waterfront town of Leiden. The sun was shining and the streets of Leiden were bustling with locals and visitors alike. At first, we planned to only spend a little time in Leiden and then move on to a larger nearby city, but Leiden was so cute we decided to spend the entire day there. Our flat was a fairly dumpy abode above a Vietnamese restaurant that also used the apartment for food storage, but we were happy to simply have an “affordable” place to stay in town. Throngs of people filled the waterfront bars and restaurants and we spent the afternoon moving from stall to stall in the outdoor markets, picking up local delicacies for dinner. We found some great Dutch wine (that we had seen others drinking at De Kas and taken note) and were not disappointed by the bounty of meat, cheese, and produce we’d sourced from local shops.
We were happy to play into Dutch stereotypes on this trip, so the next day we hopped on a train to Rotterdam, rented bicycles, and took the water taxi to some windmills. Kinderdijk is the largest concentration of old-timey windmills in the Netherlands, with a flat bike path that goes along the water into the countryside. We stopped at a truck selling ice cream halfway through the ride and found that we were the only cyclists in the area who weren’t senior citizens. Kirb asked about the flavor Boerenjongens - “Farm Boys” in English - and was informed that it was the Dutch nickname for rum raisin (“Farm Girls” is apricot brandy). The woman explained that this was the most popular flavor among the ice cream van’s older clientele. Kirb told her that he was an old person at heart and ordered up a cone.
After our bike ride, we met up with Becky and Brian in Delft, another adorable small town well known for its blue-painted pottery. There was a boomer band playing classic American folk rock songs outside of a restaurant and dozens of people had gathered on the street to watch the performance. We had drinks in the old town square before heading back to Leiden for dinner, where we purchased some of the most heinous gluten-free pizza we have ever consumed. Not all of the food in the Netherlands was exemplary, it would seem, but it was hardly the taste wasteland we had been led to believe.
Everything in this area of Holland was surprisingly close and easy to reach by train. Haarlem, Amsterdam, Leiden, Delft, Rotterdam, and other big cities were all only short rides apart from each other on public transit. Schiphol Airport was only 20 minutes on the train from Leiden, where we were able to catch a direct flight to Bilbao, something that doesn’t exist in Berlin. From there, we got four of the last remaining seats on the 75-minute direct bus to Donostia-San Sebastián. In Holland, we’d eaten much better than we had expected. Now, it was time to really eat.
Donostia-San Sebastián
Northern Spain is startling different from the parts of the country we’ve already visited in the south. This area is completely green, with rolling, forested hillsides and moderate temperatures all year round - the spring weather in San Sebastián was noticeably cooler than what we’d left behind in Berlin. Our Airbnb here was modern and clean and a fraction of the price of what we’d been paying for lodging in Holland. It was also perfectly situated on the edge of the old town, home of countless amazing pinxto bars.
The pinxto (pronounced “peen-cho”) is Northern Spain’s version of tapas, though they don’t come free with a drink purchase like they do in Almeria. These plates are a little more substantial than tapas, but still only cost a few euros apiece. We started our pinxto adventure at a place called Sirimiri, whose specialty was grilled octopus, or “pulpo.” At establishments like this, you can either stand around a table indoors or out on the street, and when you’re done eating, local customs dictate you throw your napkin on the ground when you leave. Apparently, this rule is rooted in promoting good hygiene for the servers. There are lots of tasty local wines in Basque country, but the most prevalent is txakoli (pronounced “cha-koh-lee”), a young, crisp, and easy-drinking white wine similar to Portuguese vinho verde. With wine in hand, we dug into our pinxtos and were blown away in particular by the octopus. We realized then that there were only two words you really needed to know in this region: “Txakoli pulpo.” Say this magic Basque phrase and you will never be led astray.
We moved from bar to bar, ordering whatever sounded nice, and - big surprise - it was all really good. We bought small plates of beef cheek with gravy and mashed potatoes, foie gras, and pork with hummus and mustard and ate them outside in front of a beautiful old church, surrounded by others doing the same. One night of pinxto hopping and we knew definitively that the hype surrounding San Sebastián was entirely legit.
Water is everywhere in San Sebastián: In addition to the the ocean, there are huge rivers that separate different sections of the city. We walked all the way to the end of one beach and thought we had seen “the waterfront” only to find that there was a much bigger, more built-up seaside area on the other end of the old town. The whole city feels laid back and relaxed, somehow both big and small simultaneously, modern and classic, tucked away and isolated in its own little world.
We spent the morning exploring the town, and when it was time for lunch, we hoped that that google reviews in this part of the world could actually be trusted. El Kbzón had a rating of 4.8/5 stars with over 900 reviews, but numbers like that had let us down in Thailand, and there is nothing more frustrating that wasting a meal on bad food when you know some of the tastiest things in the world are lurking just around the corner. Thankfully, everything at El Kbzón was delicious, but the blood sausage in particular was so good we ordered a second portion. We asked the waiter what made this blood sausage so much better than any other we had eaten, and he said it was because there was no meat in it, only blood and vegetables. The patty was fried crispy on the outside and silky soft inside. It entered the vaulted pantheon of great things we have eaten that we will remember forever.
While we were off supping on blood like vampires, Becky was getting a tattoo. She’d been wanting one to fill in some empty space on her sleeve and San Sebastián provided the perfect inspiration. She and Brian have a ubiquitous phrase they say to one another, both affectionately and as a kiss-off: “Eatchobutt.” Well, San Sebastián birthed “Pinxto Butt,” and when Becky asked the tattoo artist if he could draw a cartoon strawberry with an exaggerated posterior he was more than happy to oblige. We made up a “Txakoli pulpo” song that replaced the words “De todo un poco” from the salsa song from Dirty Dancing and proceeded to sing it without end for the rest of the trip.
Bar Nestor only serves three food items: tomatoes, peppers, and steak. Inside the tiny restaurant there is standing room at the bar, one large table, and one small table, as well as two more small tables situated outside. When we arrived, there was already a line stretching out the door, so we ordered some txakoli and settled in at the end. We got to talking to the ladies in front of us and they were dining at Nestor specifically for the tomatoes: just a plate of raw tomato chunks slathered in olive oil and salt. After about a half an hour, we had made our way to the front of the line and were given the small table inside to stand around, where we ordered one of everything and a round of sangrias. The plate of tomatoes was really just a showcase for the incredible olive oil they were drenched in, while the peppers were a perfect example of a great ingredient cooked simply and perfectly. The mammoth steak was definitely enough for four people, beautifully charred on the grill and rare inside, covered with flaky salt. There was no fuss or pretense about the food here. You got the feeling they had been preparing tomato, pepper, and steak this way forever, and will continue doing it exactly the same way until the end of time. There is a line out the door for good reason.
This philosophy of taking world-class ingredients and cooking them simply over fire is common in the Basque region, but it is exemplified by one restaurant in particular: Asador Etxebarri. A staple at the top of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, Etxebarri has made a name for itself thanks to its exquisite-yet-minimalist approach to cooking. In 2023, Asador Etxebarri was ranked #4 in the world, and getting reservations there was notoriously difficult, even by regular fine dining standards. The restaurant’s online reviews seemed somewhat low for an establishment of such high caliber, until we read through them and found that the majority of the 1-star reviews were from people who were frustrated that they couldn’t get a reservation at all. Asador Etxebarri is located in a small, remote village called Axpe, they only serve lunch, about 20 diners in total are served per day, and to get a table you have to email the restaurant and tell them which specific day you are hoping to dine there. If something is available, then they will respond to your message. It would seem only a very small percentage of the people who request a table at Etxebarri actually get one.
So, imagine our surprise when the week before our trip to San Sebastián, we get a message from the restaurant saying that we can have a table for four on Wednesday, May 22nd. We had emailed about a reservation months before and assumed it wasn’t in the cards when we never heard back. We jumped on the offer, paid the €280 per person up front for the prix fixe menu, and started trying to figure out how we were going to get from San Sebastián to Axpe. Public transit was going to take at least three hours each way, so we decided it was best to rent a car for a day. That way, we could explore a bit more of the area as well on our way out to the restaurant.
The first stop was Getaria, home to another of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, Elkano. Celebrity chef David Chang has said that Elkano served his favorite meal he has ever eaten. Surprisingly, we were offered a table at Elkano as well, but it was on the day we were set to fly out, so we couldn’t accept. Getaria is also famous for being the birthplace of the fashion brand Balenciaga, which none of us cared about at all. It only took a few minutes of wandering through the old town to find a shop full of regional specialties, which we do care about, so Kirb loaded up on cheese, sausage, and a strange liqueur that tasted like cherry Jägermeister.
Next, we checked out Zumaia, a beautiful waterfront town with a long boulevard that leads out to the ocean. We tried to drive up to the top of the hills for a good view and soon found ourselves on backcountry roads full of hikers and had to turn around. One of the big draws in Zumaia is a unique geological area called Flysch, which can only be reached by a boat that only departs once a day. We unfortunately missed the timing for it, and Mazz and Becky are such geology nerds that they seriously considered coming back to Zumaia the following day on multiple busses and trains to see the rocks. In the end, we were content with the cool stuff we could see on our hike out to the waterfront and back.
There is not a whole lot more going on in Axpe than Asador Etxebarri. Surrounded by green mountains, the restaurant certainly feels like a destination, and we were all giddy with excitement when we finally arrived. There’s a unique kind of anticipation when you eat at a restaurant this fancy. On any given day, there is a small chance you might eat the best meal of your entire life. But on a day where you eat at the “4th best restaurant in the world,” the likelihood goes way, way up. We were seated at a corner table and given a hulking wine list. We flipped through it, and even knowing quite a few things about wine, the list felt impenetrable, so we asked the sommelier for a recommendation. He explained that the restaurant doesn’t do pairings or glasses, only wine by the bottle, and when we told him we’d like Spanish wine, he pointed at one and said, “that one is nice” without any more real explanation. We ordered it, somewhat confused by the brusque and impersonal interaction.
We’ve eaten at some pretty fancy restaurants, and there’s a few things they generally have in common. First is the quality of the service: if you’re going to pay out the nose for a meal, there’s usually an elevated level of consideration for the guest. At Noma, it was as if we couldn’t even think about getting up before someone was already behind us pulling out our chair. Becky and Brian had recently enjoyed that same level of attention and care at Quintonil in Mexico City, where their every wish was a white-gloved attendant’s command. Maybe it was the language barrier with the serving staff at Asador Etxebarri, but if we’re being totally honest here, we’ve received more attentive service at a Red Robin. There was no explanation behind any of the dishes - the server would simply arrive with plates and say, “Squid,” and then place a squid in front of you. We would ask for basic things like another bottle of water and they would simply forget to bring it until asked again 15 minutes later. To be clear, we are not diners who feel the need to be pampered. But when you are dining in one of the world’s single best restaurants, these sorts of deficiencies become glaringly obvious.
And honestly, we wouldn’t have cared if the service was lacking if the food had tasted better. The meal started out strong, with some fantastic homemade chorizo and marinated tuna on crispy flatbread. They made incredible gluten free bread for Mazz and Becky. We all agreed that the grilled Palamós prawns were the best prawns we had ever eaten. But then there was a string of dishes that simply didn’t taste good, including a razor clam that Kirb took one bite of, nearly retched, and pushed the plate away. WE LOVE RAZOR CLAMS. They are our favorite food from the ocean. To be served razor clams that all four of us found genuinely unappetizing at such a fancy restaurant felt like an irredeemable faux pas. Unfortunately, more unappetizing dishes kept showing up on the table.
As mentioned before, the philosophy of Asador Etxebarri is to highlight the highest-quality, hyper-local ingredients with simple-yet-expert preparation over fire (although apparently no one will actually tell you about this in person at the restaurant, you have to know it already before coming in). In the case of the Palamós prawns, this ethos was easy to see and understand. But after starting the meal with a broth of St. George mushroom that didn’t particularly taste like anything, the same mushrooms were served again later in a thick coating of egg yolk. The mushrooms didn’t have a particularly enjoyable flavor or texture; they certainly weren’t delicious. Kirb was flabbergasted by this point, and in a move that was probably interpreted as rude, asked one of the servers why these particular mushrooms were being showcased instead ones that, you know, actually tasted good. She explained that these mushrooms were currently in season and had been picked from the nearby hillside. The subtext was: This is what grows here, and this is what is growing now, so this is what we are serving. Of course, they could serve a mushroom that tasted good, but none were growing around the restaurant at the moment. It’s an admirable philosophy, but it doesn’t make the mushroom taste any better. We couldn’t help but wonder how different the menu at Asador Etxebarri would be in a different season. Would they serve us the best meal of our lives in the fall, when the porcinis and chanterelles are in season?
By the time Etxebarri’s pièce de resistance made it to the table - a giant tomahawk steak - they had already lost the crowd. It didn’t matter that it was the single best steak Kirb has ever eaten in his life; we left the restaurant dejected, confused, and out a whole lot of money. In the car back to San Sebastián, we made a simple ranking system for the dishes: excellent, mid, and bad. Of the 15 courses we were served, 6 were excellent and 9 were mid or actively bad. This is not a great hit rate. What was particularly frustrating was the disparity between the highs and lows. How on Earth could a restaurant serve us the best prawns and steak we’ve ever eaten and still be considered a disappointment? Our feeling was that even if the steak at Etxebarri was technically better than the already-phenomenal one we’d had at Bar Nestor the night before, the vibe at Nestor was a million times superior and came at a fraction of the price. For the last several years, we’ve been less and less enthused about schilling out for “fine dining” experiences. Our experience at Asador Etxebarri may have been the final nail in the coffin, putting that hedonistic pastime in the ground for good.
Thankfully, there were still several more opportunities to enjoy delicious food at pintxo bars in San Sebastián. The only real downside to this way of eating is that there aren’t a whole lot of vegetables. For locals, you eat vegetables at home and then go out to pintxo bars to eat meat. We had a kitchen in our Airbnb, but adding some greens to breakfast wasn’t giving Mazz the balanced diet her body demands. After steak dinners at Nestor and Etxebarri, the plan for our final night was to go to a traditional cider house outside of town, where - you guessed it - they serve steak. Kirb could eat steak day-in and day-out without issue, but Mazz’s body was beginning to rebel. We joked that she was “just one more steak away from retirement,” like an aged cop doomed to be struck down on their last night working the beat. She just had to make it through one more steak dinner, then she could finally have some vegetables back home in Berlin.
Anxious to get the bad taste of our Etxebarri experience out of her mouth, Becky went back to Sirimiri and used the magic phrase, “Txakoli pulpo,” and all was right with the world once again. Kirb spent his afternoon finding a jamón leg that he could fit in his duffel bag and bring back to Berlin. We took a funicular up to the top of the mountain overlooking the city and wandered around the mostly-shuttered amusement park at the top. We ate ice cream and enjoyed the panoramic views, but when it was time for wine and the bar didn’t serve txakoli, we took the funicular right back down to the city.
It was easy to hop on a local bus to nearby Astigarraga, home of the Alorrenea Cider House. The enormous dining hall, filled with vats of cider, was mostly empty on a Thursday night. We ordered the set menu of potato and onion tortilla (essentially a big omelet), cod with peppers, and a big steak, which is coincidentally also all they sell. One of the brewers was demonstrating the txotx ritual, where people get cider from the tap: While one person fills their glass, another waits with their glass positioned below, ready to intercept the stream as the first person pulls away. There were two vats that guests were free to pull from as much as they liked, so we got to drinking and practicing our pouring skills.
Though not as good as Nestor or Etxebarri, the steak at Alorrenea was still phenomenal, completing what will surely be the best three consecutive days of beef in our lives. The vibe in the cider house was laid back and jovial, the food simple and delicious. You can certainly go out of your way for luxurious experiences in Basque country, but you really don’t need to. Like the food in Northern Spain, the beauty is in the simplicity. You can rent a car and be disappointed by an overly-expensive meal, or you can take the bus to an all-you-can-drink cider house and laugh all evening. After finally getting to experience the magic of San Sebastián for ourselves, it’s clear which sort of experience we’ll return to in the future.
A few weeks after this trip, the 2024 list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants was released. Asador Etxebarri moved up from #4 to #2. We just…can’t even.