Pays Basque and San Sebastian Donostia recs?

Gonna be in Basque region in October - couple days near Biarritz, couple days in San Sebastian Donostia. Appreciate suggestions for hotels, dining, touring, etc.
3* restaurants in San Sebastian are obvious, but I still appreciate your personal experiences.

[Jenise]

Bernie, you may not be an Anthony Bourdain fan, but you might find his 2008 episode on San Sebastian and environs interesting if you can locate a rerun the show itself on hulu.com.

We were at the San Sebastian area last spring and thoroughly enjoyed our dinner at Mugaritz (http://www.mugaritz.com). The menu is eclectic and has touches of molecular gastronomy that we found to be both interesting and delicious. If you are into Riojas, there were plenty of nuggets at prices near or below our US retail prices – one of our wine was a 1996 Vega Sicilia Unico which was below the lowest winesearcher US price then. Service was impeccable and efficient.

We also did Akelarre (http://www.akelarre.net) but was not as impressed as our experience was at Mugaritz. Just like most restaurants in the area, local Riojas in various vintages are dirt cheap when compared to any restaurant here in the US.

If you do the tapas crawl in San Sebastian, La Cuchara de San Telmo (http://www.lacucharadesantelmo.com) is probably one of the best tapas bar anywhere, imho. It is run/owned by a couple of chefs that worked at El Bulli. Very cheap, the place is always crowded (we went twice), but well worth it.

Another tapas bar that we very much enjoyed which will be somewhat off-the-beaten-path in downtown San Sebastian is Bar Azkena. This one is at the basement level of the main fresh market in SS and they serve amazing fresh bacalhao tapas, among many other delicious tapas. I had these with the local txakolin for breakfast and they were excellent.

As they say, tapas may have been invented in Andalucia, but they were PERFECTED in San Sebastian. You'll feel like you won’t go wrong with walking into any tapas bar in the area with the variety of tapas and all are spread out and displayed in a very appealing and delicious manner. Plus, their local txakolin wines seemed to have been invented to go very well with their tapas.

Since you will be at the Pays Basque area, you may find yourself driving towards St. Jean Pied de Port. Upon recommendation by a frequent traveler from another wine board, we had lunch of local sausages and cured meats at a place called Bar a Vin where the owner will lay out 6 tasting glasses for each of you just by telling him that you’re interested learning about the local wines. Dirt cheap and very enlightening for me as we were treated to and learned about the Irouleguy wines from about 5 or 6 different local producers, while chowing down on a couple of plates of local cured meats and cheeses. If you’re into good dessert, go to any local coffee shop, have some coffee and order the local Gateau Basque and this original version is never successfully duplicated by bake shops/restaurants anywhere else where I've tried it.

Enjoy.

Ramon

Thanks, Ramon. Mugaritz is already on my must list.

Do you know of any wine shops in SS that will ship to US? I'd like to buy some older Rioja, but don't want to tote them around France.

I'm sorry Bernard, I did not purchase wines off of wine stores during our vist. If you can find time to make your way down to La Rioja, specifically the beautiful Alta/Altavesa region, the wineries there sell directly to visitors, although I don't know if they shipped. Lopez de Heredia, La Rioja Alta, Muga, etc. all had older vintages for tastings/purchases. I lugged home as much older bottles that's allowable (by the air carrier/US Customs/wife) as they were selling for one-third to one-half of the cheapest Winesearcher pricing and that's if they were readily available in the US.

I did browse in a couple of wine stores in SS they certainly have good selections. However, the prices weren't that appealing to me after knowing how much the wines were at the wineries.
I did not go here but I was told by a local that Solbes is a store that's just opposite of the building of Mercado de la Bretxa (the fresh market place at the edge of the old town) has a good selection.
A store that I visited, iirc, was in the more modern fresh market at San Martin where I also browsed in a wine store that had some good selections. BTW, the San Martin market is another good foodie-type place if you simply want to see fresh Meditarranean fishes, produce etc.

I'm glad to know that you'll be doing Mugaritz. Have fun.