24 Best Restaurants in Bilbao and the Basque Country, Spain

One of the world's great culinary meccas, award-winning Arzak embodies the prestige, novelty, and science-driven creativity of the Basque culinary zeitgeist. The restaurant and its high-tech food lab—both helmed by founder Juan Mari Arzak's daughter Elena these days—are situated in the family's 19th-century home on the outskirts of San Sebastián. The ever-changing dishes (€240 for four courses or €270 for the tasting menu) are downright thrilling for their eye-popping presentations, unexpected flavor combinations, and rare ingredients. The best seats in the house are in the newly renovated upstairs dining room.

The immersive gastro-experience at the envelope-pushing eco-restaurant by renowned Basque chef Eneko Atxa starts with nibbles in the indoor garden, continues on to the kitchen with a quick tour, and culminates in the dining room with a conceptual tasting menu featuring dishes like "dew water" and "essence of the forest."

Museum restaurants tend to be underwhelming, overpriced tourist traps, but Bistró—with its exuberantly colorful dining room and meticulously prepared modern Basque cuisine served by a knowledgeable waitstaff—is a blissful exception to the rule. Tartares, roast meats, local seasonal vegetables, and top-grade seafood are the building blocks of the three set menus, the most expensive of which is a five-course degustación for a paltry €40.

Basque chef Martín Berasategui has more Michelin stars than any other chef in Spain, and at his flagship in the dewy village of Lasarte-Oria, it's easy to see why. Dishes are Basque at heart but prepared with exacting, French-inflected technique that comes through in dishes like artfully composed salads, elegant caviar preparations, and eel-and-foie-gras mille-feuilles—a Berasategui signature. Of all the three-stars in and around San Sebastián, Martín Berasategui—despite its rather lackluster dining room—consistently delivers when it comes to sheer hedonistic deliciousness.

Consistently delicious, shockingly affordable, and unapologetically old-school, Pentxo is the sort of restaurant Bilbaínos like to keep to themselves. Whether you pop in for a pintxo at the bar (the flash-fried antxoas rellenas, or stuffed anchovies, are a must) or come for breakfast or a €16 prix-fixe lunch (opt for whatever seafood main is listed), you'll leave wishing you could be a regular.

Tondeluna has six communal tables (with 10 seats each), and all have views into the kitchen, where cooks plate dishes novel and familiar like glazed beef cheeks with apple puree and Getaria-style hake with melty panadera (thinly sliced and roasted) potatoes.

This traditional sagardotegi 7 km (4 miles) south of San Sebastián is where the region's top chefs—Juan Mari Arzak, Martín Berasategui, and Pedro Subijana, to name a few—ring in every cider season with a resounding ¡txotx! ("cheers" in Basque). Removed from the tourist track and open from mid-January to late April, Zelaia invites guests into its barrel-lined warehouses to chow down on an à la carte menu of bacalao-centric dishes, thick-cut steaks, and—for dessert—local cheeses with quince preserves and walnuts (vegetarian options are also available).

Chef José Miguel Olazabalaga's Aizian is anything but a "hotel restaurant," even if it's situated inside the Meliá Bilbao. Sure, his dishes err on the staid side—you won't find tweezed microgreens and dry-ice displays here—but they're dependably delicious: think sautéed wild mushrooms topped with foie gras and a runny egg or seared venison loin with beets and smoked chestnut puree.

The Txapartegi brothers—Mikel, Kepa, and Gorka—are the decorated chefs behind this restaurant in elegantly restored house with a sunny terrace. Count on seasonally rotated combinations of carefully chosen ingredients, from fish and duck to vegetables.

With a wood-paneled dining room awash with antiques, this family operation is a longtime local favorite for top-quality fish and meats cooked over coals. In the open kitchen, wild lubina (sea bass), rodaballo (turbot), and other regional delicacies from land and sea cook to crackly perfection.

The narrow stone rooms of a defunct banana warehouse are now one of the finest spots for modern Basque dining. There's an affordable weekend tasting menu that hinges on what's in season, though dishes like seared txuleton and hake in white wine sauce with clams never come off the menu for a reason.

Winner of many a miniature cuisine award (don't miss the prawn-filled txalupa tartlet), this Gros neighborhood standby offers outside-the-box takes on traditional tapas and pintxos. It also serves more substantial dishes for sit-down meals.

Hiding in the basement of a timber building in the heart of the Parte Vieja, this restaurant—where world-renowned chef Martín Berasategui cut his teeth—toes the line between traditional and contemporary Basque cuisine. A recent menu included Navarran white asparagus with hollandaise, poached hake with clam-and-pea sauce, and brûléed torrijas (Spanish "French" toast).

Pamplona's gentry have been flocking to this ornate, French-style café since 1888, but in 1926 Ernest Hemingway made it part of world literary lore in The Sun Also Rises. You can have a drink with a bronze version of the author in his favorite perch at the far end of the bar, or enjoy views of the plaza from a table on the terrace. Service is spotty; grab a beverage and a tapa here, but skip the food.

With creaky wood floors, bare brick walls, and ancient beams and coats of arms, this 15th-century inn turns out classical Castilian and Basque specialties reflective of the region. Try the cochinillo lechal (roast suckling pig) or any of the monkfish preparations. The wine cellar is a gold mine. To reserve a tasting menu, priced at around €55, be sure to call at least two days ahead.

This Nueva Cocina Vasca (New Basque Cuisine) favorite houses two concepts: La Despensa, with vibrant, internationally inflected raciones served beneath neon lights and Edison bulbs, and El Atelier, the sedate, white-tablecloth restaurant serving ultra-high-end seafood-centric tasting menus. Both are terrific in their own right; spring for whichever your budget will allow.

This family-friendly restaurant off the tourist track serves a wide range of classic, lovingly prepared dishes ranging from creamy squid croquetas to griddled European lobster. The best value is the €15 weekday menú del día (prix fixe), which can be made vegetarian upon request.

If you find yourself in Getxo, the beach town north of Bilbao where the Puente de Vizcaya is located, treat yourself to a meal at this graceful mansion serving mouthwatering dishes like rice with squid and salsa verde and oxtail in Rioja wine sauce. Set menus, ranging in price from €15 to €75 per person, are a good value whether you're looking to save or splurge.

This boisterous tavern established in 1948 has ceilings dangling with jamones, walls covered with old photos of San Sebastián, and a dining room packed with locals and tourists in equal measure. Everything from the Iberian ham to the little olive-pepper-and-anchovy combos called "penaltis" will whet your appetite, but those who opt for a full meal shouldn't overlook the dry-aged txuleton.

This bucolic farmhouse in the hills above Errenteria, 8 km (5 miles) northeast of San Sebastián, is a veritable laboratory of modern cooking techniques helmed by (arguably) the most experimental chef in Spain today, Andoni Aduriz. The obligatory three-hour, 23-course experience is unabashedly abstract with dishes like "don't search, find" and "tradition: onion and squid," all complemented by zany wild-card wines. The current menu, announced in April 2022, was created in tandem with a Basque filmmaker, a writer, and an illustrator. 

Even the bread is homemade at this wildly popular Basque restaurant on the Left Bank that's renowned for throwback dishes like goose foie gras with raspberry coulis, dry-aged T-bone steaks, and house-made morcilla (blood sausage). A list of small-production and organic wines rounds out the hyperlocal dining experience.

A Calle del Laurel standby, this refined taberna with wood-paneled walls serves Riojan specialties like cochinillo asado (roast suckling pig) and pimentón-laced potatoes a la riojana (potato and chorizo stew). The neighboring La Brasa de Laurel (at No.16) is run by the same team and centers on high-end grilled meats and fish.

Don't be put off by the outdated plating (think sorbet served in martini glasses); book a meal here for contemporary interpretations of Basque classics, such as tempura-battered artichokes and razor clams with yuzu vinaigrette. The tasting menu (€78) changes seasonally; beware there is only one dinner service, on Saturday.

This is the kind of restaurant where the chef greets every table and meals start with an amuse-bouche of foie gras—in other words, a slice of old-school heaven. Market-driven meals (think roasted wild game, tiny de lágrima peas, and strawberry gazpacho) unfold to the backdrop of a 15th-century farmhouse with an ivy-lined patio (the latter is open in summer only).