HOW IMPORTANT IS FOOD TO
THE LOCAL CULTURE?
Food is everything in Bilbao.
Every big decision, every
celebration, every important
meeting takes place around a
table. We’re lucky to have a huge
variety of ingredients — we have
a long coastline and the climate is
just right for growing crops and
vegetables — although Basque
cuisine is still quite traditional. It’s
honest food.WHAT’S THE RELATIONSHIP
LIKE BETWEEN SAN SEBASTIÁN
AND BILBAO?
There’s a healthy rivalry. San
Sebastián gets called ‘Little Paris’
— in the ‘70s and ‘80s, some of its
chefs trained in France, so it’s a
bit posher there. Although if you
ask them, they’ll say the bilbaínos
think a lot of themselves!WHERE TRADITIONAL
BASQUE RESTAURANTS
WOULD YOU RECOMMEND?
Try El Arandia de Julen — it does
the best beans and steak — or
Pulpería Vermutería Florines for
good-quality octopus.
bilbaofoodtours.comQ&A with Patrizia
Vitelli, Bilbao
Food ToursUrban recognition //
Bilbao was named
European City
of the Year at the
2018 Urbanism
Awards, which
takes into account
everything from
urban development to
environmental issues
a riverside hall that’s the largest covered
market in Europe, the aisles accost you with
mounds of mussels, towers of tomatoes,
walls of cheeses and vats of green beans.
There’s a touristy element to it — local advice
is to avoid eating in the style-over-substance
bars within the market hall — but many of
Bilbao’s leading chefs still stock up their
restaurant larders right here.
The sheer variety of local ingredients makes
the omnipresent pintxo — the Basque take
on tapas — the perfect Bilbao food. Found
on almost every bar counter in town, these
snack-sized creations are traditionally meant
to be consumed in two bites. Today, however,
they’ve evolved from simple-but-brilliant
classics such as the gilda — an olive, a chilli
and an anchovy on a stick — to creative
concoctions that might involve anything from
quail eggs to spider crab.
Most bars off er a wide choice, but generally
have their own, honed-to-perfection house
speciality. The locals have a word — poteo
— which refers to the act of moving from
bar to bar, ordering a drink and a pintxo in
each. You hear the word said a lot, and no
wonder. To spend an evening drift ing around
a soft ly lit neighbourhood, gorging on bite-
sized dishes and watching the edges of the
buildings grow gradually hazier, is one of
Bilbao’s greatest joys.THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’
“I’ve worked behind the bar here for
30 years,” says Aitor Aginako, his face
cracking into a grin above his neatly
pressed blue shirt. Café Bar Bilbao sits
in one corner of the Old Town’s Plaza
Nueva and has a marbled counter, a
chequerboard fl oor and patterned wall
tiles. “In 30 years, you learn how to look
aft er customers. You need to know where
to stand — always be close by, but without
invading their space — and how to treat
people with respect. But most of all,” he says,
pointing to small portions of bacalao al pil-
pil (salt cod in a garlic and chilli sauce), “you
need good pintxos.”CLOCKWISE FROM TOP
LEFT: Croissants at
Bohemian Lane cafe,
Bilbao’s fi rst vegan
bakery; Bohemian Lane
owner Sandra Mateo;
Café Bar Bilbao prides
itself on serving some
of the best pintxos in
the city
BILBAOJul/Aug 2020 127