Pintxos in San Sebastián: what they are, how to order, what to skip

Overview

A pintxo is a small thing eaten at a bar counter, standing, with a small drink, before moving on to the next bar. The name comes from pinchar, to pierce, and the oldest form is exactly that: a few ingredients held together on a stick, often on a slice of bread. The stick is still there on many of them, but the word now covers almost anything a Basque bar sells in a few bites, from a skewer of pickles to a plated square of slow-cooked beef cheek.

It is not a tapa, and the difference matters when you pay. In much of Spain a tapa is, or once was, a free bite that came with the drink. A pintxo is chosen and paid for, one by one. It is also the center of the evening rather than a side to it: a round of four or five bars, a pintxo and a drink in each, is dinner here, and it has a name, txikiteo or poteo, from the small glasses drunk along the way.

San Sebastián’s claim is density rather than invention. Pintxos are eaten all over the Basque Country, but the old town, the Parte Vieja, packs bar after bar into a few narrow streets, and the counters there are where the form was pushed furthest. From the 1990s, cooks trained in the new Basque cooking of the previous decades began putting that kitchen’s techniques into miniature, and the city became known for counters where a two-bite thing could be as considered as a restaurant plate.

The founding story belongs to the Gilda: an anchovy, a pickled green guindilla pepper and an olive on one stick. It is said to have been assembled in a bar in the 1940s and named after Rita Hayworth’s character in the film Gilda — green, salty and a little spicy. The name and the date fit, and the story is told everywhere; who first made it is not documented beyond local tradition, and several claimants exist. Treat it as a good story that happens to describe the snack perfectly.

What to order

Every serious bar sells two kinds of pintxo, and knowing which is which is most of the skill.

The counter pintxos are the ones laid out along the bar, cold or at room temperature: the Gilda, anchovies on bread, peppers, salt cod, the tortilla. You ask the bartender for one, point, or in many bars ask for a plate and take your own. The kitchen pintxos, pintxos calientes or de cocina, are written on a board behind the bar and cooked to order. These are usually the reason a bar is known, and a visitor who eats only from the counter has seen half of it.

Words worth recognizing on the counters and boards:

• Gilda — the original stick: anchovy, guindilla, olive. Sharp and salty, best with a cold drink.
• txipirones en su tinta — small squid in their own black ink sauce, often over rice or on bread.
• carrillera — beef or pork cheek braised until it falls apart, usually in red wine.
• bacalao — salt cod, in many forms: al pil-pil, its gelatin whisked with oil into a pale emulsion, or as a brandada on toast.
• txangurro — spider crab, usually baked or gratinated.
• kokotxas — hake or cod throats, a delicacy with a soft, gelatinous texture.
• tortilla — the potato omelet, here typically cooked so the center stays loose.
• Idiazabal — the region’s sheep’s-milk cheese, smoked or plain, under a protected designation; it turns up on its own, on bread, and in modern hot pintxos.

The drink comes first and sets the pace. A zurito is a short beer and a txikito a small glass of wine, the sizes the round is built around. Txakoli is the local white, young, dry and slightly sparkling, poured from a height so it foams in the glass. A crianza is an aged red. A larger beer is fine, but it slows the round.

The custom is one or two pintxos per bar, then on to the next. Ordering six at once and settling in is not wrong, but it is how you end up eating the counter’s leftovers instead of the kitchen’s best.

What to avoid

The counter is both the attraction and the weak point. Cold pintxos are set out at the start of service and then sit, and a counter pintxo late in the afternoon is not the same object it was at half past one. Bread under a wet topping goes soft; anything bound with mayonnaise dulls and sweats. A counter piled high and evenly with near-identical slices under a sheen of mayonnaise is built for volume, not for the evening.

Watch what happens to a hot pintxo. One that arrives a minute after ordering, from a tray under the counter, was made earlier and warmed. A kitchen pintxo worth ordering takes a few minutes, and the bars that cook to order are usually the ones with a short board rather than a long one.

Look at the words. In this city the snack is called a pintxo; a sign selling “tapas” in large letters, or offering paella and sangría, is usually speaking to people who expect generic Spain, and neither of those belongs to a Basque bar. A fixed “pintxo menu” of a preset assortment with a drink, priced as a package, works the same way: it removes the one thing the form is about, which is choosing.

Finally, the most photographed counters are not always the best ones. The crush at a bar with a famous kitchen pintxo is real, but on a summer evening part of it is people photographing the counter rather than eating from it.

Practicalities

Counter pintxos run roughly €2.50 to €4, the simplest skewers such as a gilda a little less; kitchen pintxos roughly €3.50 to €7, more for anything built around foie or seafood. A drink is a few euros. A full round of four or five bars therefore costs about what a mid-range dinner does, and a pintxo well under the counter range is usually one made with bread doing most of the work.

The hours are narrow, and they decide what you get. Bars serve pintxos around lunch, roughly from one to half past three, and again in the evening from around eight until ten or eleven; outside those windows many kitchens are closed and the counter is what is left. The best moment for the counter is the start of each service. Lunch is calmer than the evening and the kitchens are the same.

In the Parte Vieja the evening crowd can stand three deep. Get the bartender’s eye, order clearly, and keep the stay short. In several neighborhoods one fixed evening a week brings the pintxo-pote, a pintxo and a drink at a single low price in participating bars; in Gros it is Thursday, and the crowd is younger than the old town’s.

Payment is usually at the end, at the bar, and often on trust: you say what you had. Keep count. Cards are common now, but the busiest counters are faster with cash, and a few coins left on the bar is plenty by way of a tip.