Two tasty ways to eat in Bilbao: Pintxos, or Michelin starred fine dining.
I think when most Americans think of Spanish food, they think of tapas, the small plates that allow you to try lots of different things. In Basque Country, they have pintxos (or pinchos). They tend to be smaller and more artfully designed, although I’ve seen plenty of beautifully-plated tapas as well. No matter the spelling, it’s pronounced “PEENCH-oh” (the Basque “tx” sounds like a “ch”).
On one drizzly afternoon, we ventured into Bilbao’s old town and visited a couple of the restaurants that encircle the Plaza Nueva to explore the wonderful world of pintxos.
First, a few of the old town scenes that we passed on our way to the plaza:
Did I mention it was a bit drizzly? We made it to Plaza Nueva before it really started coming down, and all was well because the plaza is encircled by a covered arcade that allows you to hop from bar to bar, restaurant to restaurant, without worrying about the weather.
A note on photography: I find food photography difficult when traveling because restaurants are often designed for a certain ambiance, and not necessarily for easy food photography. Lighting can be harsh and coming from multiple sources, causing crazy, multiple shadows, and there is often a difficult mix of warm interior light and some stray, cool window light. I prefer to shoot by a window and use only the soft daylight if possible, but it’s often not possible. In situations like these, I tend to use my phone for food photography. It has a better built-in ability to balance different light sources and it does well in dark spaces. That said, I often still remove any blue from the image because you’ll often get blue shadows or a blue shine on a plate or piece of silverware from a bit of window light coming from somewhere. Blue seldom makes food look better so it’s best in most cases to just get rid of it and balance the rest of the scene so that white looks “white”.
In most cases I saw, pintxos were set out on display so it was easy to point and order, if you were unfamiliar with the menus written in Spanish or Basque.
I should also point out that I had an excellent guide for not only this pintxos tour, but for my entire time in Basque Country. Aitor Delgado was knowledgable, organized and just plain fun to be around. Check him out if you’re going to be in the area.
And for dinner, elevated Basque cuisine at the Michelin-starred Zortziko, Daniel Garcia Chef, located on this tree-lined street not far from the Guggenheim.
Here is the full tasting menu the night we visited, and photos of four of the courses below:
- Three different appetizers.
- Smoked cauliflower, Beluga Caviar and textured Cava.
- Scallop in pickled sauce with parsnip and chive.
- Cod on vegetable ratatouille with two sauces, pil pil and Vizcaína.
- Monkfish cooked at Zortziko style.
- Challans Burgaud duck, red fruites sand, duck mousse.
- Autumn roll cake, walnut cream.
Smoked cauliflower, Beluga Caviar and textured Cava.
Monkfish cooked at Zortziko style.
Challans Burgaud duck, red fruites sand, duck mousse.
