Is San Sebastián Really Spain’s Best Food City? We Spent 24 Hours Eating to Find Out

Anthony Bourdain once called San Sebastian the best place to eat in Europe, and after hearing that over and over and over, we finally came here to see if this city could actually live up to its reputation as Spain's food capital. Because when a place gets this hyped, there's always the chance it's going to disappoint you. So today we're spending 24 hours eating our way through San Sebastian. From a celebrity-loved anchovy bar, this is truly gonna make you fall in love with This is nuts. Starting with cheesecake. This is Lavinia. It's been open since 1959, and it went viral for their famous burnt basque cheesecake, which is what we're trying today. So this thing is the most iconic Spanish dessert at the moment right now. It's baked at a really high temperature, so the outside gets this kind of like burnt texture, but then the inside doesn't fully set, and there's no crust. So this thing is all cheesecake all the time. Like check this out. It is so gooey. Today is starting so strong. I hope that we never get full. The texture is like, think of like if pudding, cheesecake, and a flan had a baby. Getting every last crumb, huh? No crumb left behind. I wouldn't lick this plate if I could, but I don't think that's socially acceptable in Spain, or anywhere. Well that was airy sweet creamy perfection that I would eat again and again for breakfast, and honestly, we probably will. But now we should be responsible adults and get some homonidus. This is half my Eritreal day, and this place came up in all the foodie forums. It's a Guia Repsel Solite, and if you're not familiar, this is like an in-the-know foodie guide, which is kind of like the Michelin guide in the USA. This is a solite, which means it's kind of like big gourmand. Really good food for really good value. So to be a little more responsible, we got a more balanced breakfast, but still very traditional Spanish pan con chivadre. Typically the tomato is grated. This one they do like a full tomato, and then it's bread, olive oil, and the prized iberico ham. It's a good toast when the bread is still crispy after you've been filming for 20 hours. Oh man, it's so crispy. Thank goodness. Iberico ham is literally like ham butter, and they feed the pigs acorns, so it's like kind of sweet and salty. Tomato, bread, olive oil. I always say it, but it's simply perfect. And that place was so local, and they're so cute and so friendly. Exactly the kind of place that we love helping you find, because that is the mission of our channel. To help you eat like a local and avoid these tourist traps. So if that's your vibe, hit subscribe. And now we've got some lunch to eat. Onwards. For lunch, after all my research, I found Cavachon Chiqui. This new modern Basque place that people aren't really talking about yet. This place focuses on low temperature cooking, and then really cool modern takes on classical Basque food. They have pincho sizes, medias raciones, and raciones, which is like a full dish. So you can either get one big thing and commit, or you can try a bunch of stuff, which is how we decided to do this. First up, a more traditional Spanish food is beef cheeks. It's this is literally like, I just like melting just looking at it. It looks so tender. Okay. We have had pork cheeks before, but not like this. It's so tender. It's so meaty. So comforting. Fantastic. There's the beef. Right there. Arby's ain't got nothing. It was Burger King, but that's okay. You tried. Pork ribs. Yes. This is a Basque pork rib, slow cooked for 24 hours, in their signature style with chipichurri. And it's literally taking a bath in peanut cream. Oh my gosh. Literally the first thing I tasted was peanut. It's actually kind of like Asian inspired. If you've ever had like that Thai dish, it was like swimming in like that peanut satay. It's literally what it tastes like. The guy who's serving us is the real hero of the day. He is the man because we ordered this. Wow. They're like, we're out. And we were like, so sad about it. And he literally ran to their sister restaurant down the street to get this for us. I wish you could smell this. It is literally like punching me in the face with that amazing garlic umami truffle situation. I'm so excited for this. That is a flavor bomb. Dot com. You've got truffle. You've got the salty olive. You've got the creamy egg and the cod and this nice little packet of like the most superbly soft dough. I like. Keep it going. Keep it going. Keep it coming. We finished with a tuna cheese sauce situation that shouldn't work, but it did. I thought it was like going to be like fine, but like it was like probably my favorite dish. Same. It was fantastic. Thank you for coming here. Thank you for having us. And your name is Sancho. Sancho? Sancho. Sancho. Andres. Andres and Sancho are the men. Well, that was incredible. And where else can you get four incredible bites and alcohol for 30 euros? Nowhere. That's like a burger at McDonald's these days. Fantastic. So before we dive into our formal Pinchos crawl, we got to give you some tips to survive the Pinchos crawl because trust us, there is a strategy. So number one, don't sit. Standing up is the real vibe. You want to act like a local. Number two, go straight to the bar to order because no one is going to come and serve you at the table. Number three, don't bring a big backpack because these places are shoulder to shoulder. We have the backpack dropped off, which means we can officially begin the almighty Pincho crawl. If you're unfamiliar with Pinchos, it's a little Spanish bar snack that's on a stick. Typically the name actually means spear. Don't confuse them with tapas. So tonight we're going to take you to some spots that could be a tourist trap where celebrities go for anchovies. Yes, really. But first we are starting with a place that claims to have invented the very first Pincho. It's a little walk on a city center, so hopefully it's worth it. We arrived at Casa Balas. This place was established in 1942 and it's one of the oldest continuously running Pincho bars in the whole city. It's actually survived two fires and they're still serving the same recipe, the famous Pincho that they invented here, the Gilda. So this apparently was invented right here when someone skewered olive, guindilla peppers, and anchovy together. And then when some customers tasted it, they were like, this reminds me of Rita Hayworth's character in the movie Gilda. Green, salty, and a little spicy. And the name has just stuck for generations. And it's one of our favorite little Pinchos, especially with a glass of vermouth. It's designed to make you want more vermouth. So you have to do it all in one bite. Have fun watching this. It's a mouthful. Salty, spicy, briny. Got it all. And then you wash it down with that sweet vermouth. And it's doing its job. And I definitely, I'm going to want some more vermouth. Okay, thoughts on the place that invented the Gilda? I thought it was really good. It was just too big. There's no graceful way to eat that. I mean, you saw Taylor eating it. It kind of dampens the whole experience because you just want to pick it up and eat it. So we're back in the main city center, the old town where most of the Pincho bars are. And we're going to crawl tonight. And our first stop here, we're going to go to one that could be a tourist trap. This is Gandarias. We're always a little wary when something has more than 10,000 reviews because like, do tourists go there or it's actually amazing? Locals still say some of their Pinchos are fantastic. When you come into a Pincho bar, you're going to see the counter with all the actual cold Pinchos. But what you need to know is that the hot Pinchos are not seen, they're ordered. So a good way to find what those are is to look at either the menu or ask. They'll let you know. Here it is the steak and shrimp. It's the Pincho version of Serpent Earth. Which one would you start with? Must know. It's shrimp, the soft bread, and these little very sweet peppers. And I thought it was going to be spicy looking at it because it's red, but it's not at all. I see why it's famous. Why does steak need to be on a bread? Who knows? But they do it to like literally everything. And there's this little tiny like little tiny pepper. I'm not sure that's going to do anything, but it's there. There's medium rare and then there's this. This is rare baby. It's mooing. Normally I'd be mad about this, but this is so good. I can't be. You're gonna be so impressed. It's so good. And like it doesn't have much going on other than the steak, but it doesn't need it. I love that. Ready for celebrity famous anchovies? I am. So was there a twist trap or was it worth it? No, I mean it was good. Like I like both. Quality meat. Are you in for both? I think it's worth checking out. Next up is Bar Tepecha. We fell in love with anchovies here and this place is famous among celebrities like Ethan Hawke and Glenn Close who actually closed this place down so she could eat here. They do one thing and one thing only. Anchovies. Using a marinade that took 40 years to perfect and it's still run in the same family. Basically if anchovies had a temple, this would be it. This is the true Pinterest bar vibe. It is packed and crowded. This bar is so good that they won first, second, and third place awards in the same pinto competition. So they had to change the rules just so no bar could ever clean sweep again. Got the two top contenders. Got spider crab with anchovy on bread and some kind of just very fresh or vinegar, pepper, onion situation. Spider crab is very famous in San Sebastian. We had it in our Basque country road trip. So good. But these anchovies are way different than the other ones that you and then we got Chakoli. Is that a vermouth? That is a local white wine here. It's poured from a big height so it's very like fizzy, light, and crisp. Designed to kind of cut through the briny fishy Pinterest that they serve very commonly in the Basque country. This one was our favorite when we fell in love with this place a couple years ago. It's literally so fresh. It tastes like a garden and the sea had a baby. This is truly gonna make you fall in love with anchovies. We promise. Well we're one anchovy away from dehydration but the crumb must continue. Let's go. We're switching it up a little bit for the next stop, Borda Berry. This place has been here since 1949. We went here. We were in San Sebastian a couple years ago. We fell in love. It's a little different because it doesn't do cold pin shows. You're not going to walk in and see the normal stuff on bread in the window. This is hot kitchen to table only. This is nuts. That's crazy. Wild. All right this place is wild but their veal cheek and their pork rib are supposed to be legendary melt in your mouth so of course we have to get both. It looks very very juicy. This is a classic cheek taste like just that red wine comforting super tender meat. If you just want to feel like cozy literally because you're surrounded by people come here and get this pork cheek, veal cheek, all the cheeks. They accidentally turned into the battle of the pork cheeks and the pork ribs or the whatever the cheeks and the ribs and I'm okay with that. I'm not mad about it. It's like so tender. Literally just came out. Oh yeah. I love the one we had earlier but it's just like I am a pork rib. I am here. The top is like crunchy and caramelizy and it's like very salty. It's like crunchy and soft. At the same time it's still pretty good. If you want just like the rib you come here. So many people. Since we're all about helping you eat like a local we've ventured about 10 minutes outside of the old town to the gross district where we did our pinto pote. This is where the locals go for tapas and we're at Bar Zamboleta. Apparently they're known for the most gooey Spanish tortilla in all the land. It is so gooey they do not mess around. This thing is literally going to come off with that plate. Look at this. It's like so glistening. A good tortilla has caramelized onions and I see them in here so I think we're in for an eggy treat. That is so gooey. It's like eggy and sweet with the caramelized onions. The potatoes are so like soft and tender. This is literally how we should be doing breakfast in the USA. Just put instead of doing potatoes and eggs on the side put it all together and bake it. Spain knows how to do it. It's fantastic. Well I said we were one anchovy away from dehydration and I say an anchovy. We got anchovy, we got some little veggies on top, a tomato and then tuna. I don't know which way to attack this thing. This way looks safer. The tuna salad here I don't know. I'm pretty sure it's made by like fisherman wizards. It's so flavorful. The anchovy it just adds like saltiness. I like to eat all of these. It's such a good bite. Well it's safe to say that San Sebastian food scene is incredible. This pincho cross set the bar high but there is so much more to eat in Spain. So watch this video next to keep planning your trip.