The Pintxos Bars of San Sebastian ...

A guide for anyone visiting Basque country ...

Fermín Calberton Kalea is a great street in Old Town for pintxos.

San Sebastian is known as one of Spain’s gastronomic hubs, and the center of its culinary tradition, what makes the town unique, are its pintxos bars.

Pintxos are to Basque country what tapas are to the rest of Spain. Pronounced PEEN-chōs, these are small dishes—often served on skewers, or pintxos—to enjoy with your Rioja, cervesa, or cider (sidra is one of the local specialties, always poured from on high and drunk quickly).

By all means, try the cider. Some of it is so barnyardy it reminded me of scrumpy, that great sour cider from west Sussex, England, that I cherished when I spent a year at the University of Sussex. (One bibulous evening I became convinced I could make a killing if I introduced it to an American market, where hard cider didn’t exist, or at best, was a rarity. My friends said it would never fly.)

When we go to a new city, especially one renowned for its food, we schedule a food tour the day of our arrival. As I’ve noted (and written about), a food tour not only introduces you to choice spots, but helps to acclimate you to a new city. Gorka, a Basque native, was our guide (we use and recommend the company Devour Spain for food tours throughout the country), and he did a great job.

Every now and then we have a tour guide who gives little to no information, simply ordering food for the group and letting people talk amongst themselves. Gorka gave us a Basque history lesson, a history of pintxos, and a geography lesson; he was also warm, friendly and filled with knowledge about his region and its food.

If one street embodies pintxos culure it is Fermín Calberton Kalea in Old Town. The street is packed with people in the early evening eating and drinking at side-by-side pintxos bars. Establish your real estate as fast as you can, Gorka explained, heading into a packed Goiz-Argi to fetch plates and skewers. We would eat and drink at tables on the street outside the bars.

What follows is a guide to the pintxos bars we loved and one absolute MUST GO restaurant just outside the city. We relied on multiple sources. Gorka, of course, but also a Spanish-American novelist and friend of a friend, Julian Zabalbeascoa, author of What We Tried To Bury Grows Here, a novel about the Spanish Civil War. And Marti Buckley, an Alabama chef/writer who lives in San Sebastian and is the author of The Book of Pintxos and Basque Country.