This is the seafood restaurant next to the Donostia Aquarium.
Do not confuse it with the museum's own cafe which is immediately ABOVE the aquarium.
This is the first commercial establishment next to the aquarium not counting a tourist store.
We went to this place on the advice of our landlady from Pamplona.
She was absolutely correct - this place is stellar!
We ordered three dishes - all of which were legendary.
1) The fish soup tasted more authentically like real fish than any fish soup I have had.
it is a smooth bisque.
Most smooth fish bisques are fish ground into something else.
(Ground into garlic, ground into chiles, ground into tomato, whatever.)
This fish soup was soup made of fish.
Each bite tastes like a forkful of broiled haddock.
It was suave, hearty and satisfying.
2) Lemon clams a la plancha.
These were broiled clams on the broiling board.
They were nice big clams that had been rinsed enough that you did not get any unsavory tastes from whatever the clams had been having for dinner.
They were mild - but the restaurant knew how to fix that.
They put industrial quantities of sliced garlic on top before broiling then covered the whole affair in butter and olive oil.
The clams and garlic were done to perfection - and what the clams really were were a vehicle for magnificent broiled garlic.
Good broiled garlic is an aphrodisiac, a euphoric, and a cure for all evils.
A hot buttered clam is a great thing on which to put garlic.
3) Broiled tuna.
Broiled seafood is broiled seafood right? It is the same all over the world, right?
NOT in the Basque Country!
The Basques broil their meat charred on the outside and nearly raw on the inside.
They do the same to their fish.
I have seen American fish places try to imitate this with tuna.
The tuna here was absolutely red and absolutely raw - redder and rawer than I have seen any American restaurant pull off.
Better yet - the tuna had fish eggs and they were included in the fish.
Yes on the raw side.
Other advantage of Basque cooking -
This tuna was fresh off the Basque boat.
In the US, the fish was caught by Russians or the Japanese last year, semi frozen, and you are getting the thawed version of it in your American seafood restaurant.
We ordered three dishes and got three amazing experiences.
I can not complain about their batting average. read more