La Cuchara de San Telmo
31 de Agosto Kalea 28
20003 Donostia, Gipuzkoa
Spain
TripAdvisor

Enough of the fine dining stuff.  We finally got to hit up the pintxos bars in the San Sebastian’s old town.  The whole area is totally walkable and great for a “pintxos crawl,” where you just hop from place to place, eating and drinking a little from each bar.  Pintxos are like tapas.  Some bars have a huge selection to choose from.  Others specialize in just a few kinds.  I’ve never been a fan of bar hopping, mostly because I’m lazy.  I just like to plop down in one place and make the most of it, but I felt it was important to do as the locals and hit up as many places as we could.  Seriously, the only limiting factor was our stomach size.  This place was PACKED.  Fortunately, turnover is pretty high, so squeezing into order and eat wasn’t as bad as it seemed at the outset.

Veal Cheeks stewed with red wine, creamy garbanzos, cumin, espelette
Braised to perfection.

Razor Clams a la Plancha traditional ajoblanco, fruit and herbs of the moment
Never a disappointing razor clam in all of Spain.

Roasted Foie Gras compote of roasted onions and cardamom
Rich and heavy as expected, but excellent flavor.  It would have been easier to split this 4-6 ways because it was a lot just for 2 people to finish.

Roasted Giant Cod Jowls broccoli-garlic puree, sea vegetables
While I have it written that these are cod jowls, they actually were not, but rather some other cut of another fish since they ran out of the cod jowls already.  I was a bit disappointed because the cod jowls really seemed like one of their signature items.  Still, these were solidly executed with some bright flavors.  Lovely.

La Cuchara de San Telmo was one of our favorite spots in San Sebastian.  The food is delicious.  The flavors are authentic.  The crowd is lively to say the least.  The menu is fairly extensive and I wished I could order every item.  The place is cash only so come prepared.

10 – You NEED to eat here
9 – Awesome
8 – Very good
7 – Good
6 – OK
5 – Average
4 – Not bad
3 – Not good
2 – Terrible
1 – Do NOT eat here