Last week I spent a glorious week in San Sebastian gorging and sunning myself in that order daily: breakfast, beach, lunch, beach, dinner, drinks, snacks. My friend Jenny asked me whether I went on any nice walks. “I mainly walked to restaurants. That was nice.”
I was with my parents, who are foodies but not into fine dining so I skipped all the big names and went with recommendations from Spanish friends instead. As my friend Iván pointed out, when you can eat so well wherever you go in a city, it’s not really worth bothering with fine dining.
La Cuchara de San Telmo was recommended by all 6 people who sent me their hit lists, so naturally it was first on mine. I was so excited that I arrived at 12.15pm on the first day of my holiday, 15 minutes before they open and was told rather gruffly to come back later. I said I’d wait and I was lucky I did, because a small queue began to form as 12:30 approached.
I’m telling you this so you can go prepared. This place is really popular. There are only 3 tables outside and that really is where you want to be in the midday heat – sitting in the shadow of the San Telmo Museo where you can fully enjoy large portions of the heavenly food. I never did the pintxos - small versions of the larger rations - but I can certainly tell you that a mouthful will not be enough.
It is not a stylish place – when I asked to see a wine list I was told there wasn’t one and if I wanted white it was “verdejo or nothing”. Both the wine and the beers came in tumblers. The service is efficient, but in that stressed, 'let's get you through the door' kind of way, rather than the 'I’d love to help and please you' way.
What the restaurant lacks in service, space and style, it makes up for with the fantastic food. With dishes of this quality and at such reasonable prices they really don’t need to do anything more to charm us.
We ordered media raciones (half rations), which were generous enough for four people to share and have a few mouthfuls each, but small enough that we were able to try almost everything we most desperately wanted in one sitting. If I take you through all the things I ate (at least 10 dishes over two days) we will be here all week, so I’ve narrowed it down to a top three:
1. Burrata de Apulia Templada con Almejas and Navajas
(Warm burrata from Apulia with clams and razor clams)
2. Morcilla de Pascal Massinde Salteada, Melon Piel de Sapo Salteado con Pimienta Sechuan
(Morcilla and sautéed piel de sapo melon with Szechuan pepper)
3. Oreja de Cerdo Prensada Cruijiente y Melosa, Humus de Garbanzo
(Pressed pigs ear – crispy and soft with hummous)
1. Cheese isn’t something I think to pair with seafood, but this really worked. Salty, tender clams on a bed of soft, creamy burrata, loads of garlic and a herby oil that appeared on every plate, but worked best with this one. The result: a sea-salty, smooth and creamy, bread-dipping, finger-licking, shell-sucking delight of a dish. Y punto.
2. The Spanish, like the French, know how to make black pudding. I don’t even bother in the UK. Don’t pasteurise that shit! If you are going to eat blood, do it properly - like a f**king carnivore. Annyyway, this was the very best Spanish black pudding – soft and sweet, falling apart at a gentle caress from a fork. Sauteed melon as a pairing was ingenious: chunks of brown caramelised melon, still crisp in the centre, at once sweet and tart, rich and fresh. I couldn’t taste the Szechuan pepper, but I didn’t miss it.
3. You can really make a pig's ear of pig's ear. It can be too crunchy or too chewy and sometimes even hairy. This was none of these. It was, as pitched, both soft and crispy – the golden exterior giving way to a meltingly fatty centre. Hummous sounded like an odd accompaniment, but with a zing of lemon the acidity helped to cut through the fat.
My dad will be sad that I left the foie and sweetbreads off the list – he loved them, but I found them both a step too far in the rich and gamey direction on a hot and sweaty day.
My mum probably would have mentioned the cod, which was perfectly cooked and well paired with a sweet and vinegary romesco sauce, but the sauce lacked texture for me (I like to see/feel the almonds) and it was outshone by a number of other dishes. In a normal restaurant it may have been the star, but this was the gastronomic equivalent of Broadway.
I am struggling very hard not to give into the urge to write a lot about the suckling pig (meltingly tender meat, perfectly crisp and salty crackling), which came a close 4th... but then we really will be here all week. We spent a good portion of ours there, in fact. We couldn’t do all the dishes we wanted to try in one sitting, so we went back the next day to finish the menu.
