San Sebastian

Tony went on a poteo (bar crawl) with the famous chef Juan Mari Arzak and his daughter Elena. They ate a lot of pintxos and drank beer. They did not specify the places they visited except for this one, because this was Tony's favorite place to get pintxos, and the first place someone brought him to when he first visited the Basque area. Iberico ham with mushrooms on toast, crab tartlets, seared wild mushrooms and foie gras with egg yolk (house specialty, and Tony's favorite).

Xabier Agote, Shipwright and founder of the Basque Maritime Museum, is working here to built a 16th century style Basque galleon.

Tony and Xabier had Rock prawn (head and body cooked separately—head grilled and body served semi-ceviche), grilled squid with onion-green pepper sauce, cocochas (hake fish jowls or chins), and grilled turbot (this is the dish people travel to this restaurant to try).

Tony sat with the Arzaks, who, he considers family. "The food is innovative, wildly creative, forward thinking, but always, ALWAYS Basque. Marinated prawns on lemongrass and mint with beetroot and crunchy krill, roast pigeon with mastic and potato... grilled hake jowls with teff seeds and almonds served in a bamboo leaf... grilled monkfish with a pecan paste and hieroglyphics of pumpkin and sweet pea... white tuna with green melon and a jackfruit sauce... squid with walnut-ginger paste, psyllium sauce with black tomato."

Tony met with a group at this place. They discussed "txokos" or "private and historically all-male gastronomical societies, though that gender rule has changed with the times." The menu for the evening: "diced raw tuna, grilled prawns with green sauce" to start, then "for the main, fried hake cooked with txakoli and steamed clams."

"In every way, extraordinary" says Tony. He had lunch with his old friend Virginia Irizar, who runs a restaurant, and whose dad showed him San Sebastian for the first time. The chef of Etxebarri, Victor Arguinzoniz, makes everything himself from local ingredients. Tony had chorizo "served over a tiny little grill still smoking and infusing it with scent and flavor, grilled razor clams, beluga caviar... grilled and heaped over almond paste... perfectly cooked prawns. Line caught squid, grilled and served in its own ink. And king hell Galician beef chop, grilled."

Tony ate here with Olatz González Abrisketa, a documentarian and professor of social anthropology at the University of the Basque Country. "Seared mushrooms with egg yolk and pine nuts... grilled tuna with marmitako sauce, a reference to a classic fishermen's stew;  peas in a consommé of Ibérico ham," and squid with a white bean cream. 

Bourdain ate Tuna belly with tomato carpaccio, pigeon.