Mazzantini taberna — Restaurant in Deba

While walking the Camino Culinario* we stumbled across this taberna and found it to be absolutely fantastic. We started with one bocadillo each, plus a couple of their beers on tap. (They have excellent craft beer on tap!) The bocadillos were so freakin' good that we ordered four more because it was simply too hard to choose. They were all excellent! They also make a mean Gilda!

Additionally, the service was great too, with the folks behind the bar warming up extra to us when we tried speaking a little of the Basque we are learning.

We were so impressed with the bocadillos that when driving back from Donostia - San Sebastian to the Bilbo airport to fly home, we took a detour to stop off and have some more bocadillos and great beer. ...we simply weren't sure if they really could have been as good as we remembered. Well, they were!

We also tried their tortilla during our return visit and it was one of the best anywhere in Basque Country. (We learned afterwards that they are well known for their tortilla, and I can see why.)

We lead food and drink tours and will be bringing our first to Euskal Herria (Basque Country) this fall and are going to make a special stop here so our guests can taste what bocadillos and tortillas should really taste like.

(*The Camino Culinario is our invention combining the walking of a Camino with the excellent eating across the Basque Country. It covers 100 miles (160 km), from Bilbo to Donostia - San Sebastian, visiting all the fishing villages along the coast all while eating as much great Basque food as we can!)

Update - we've now returned an additional two times and Mazzantini always exceeds our...

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