Arzak, with three Michelin stars, sits at number 8 in the The World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards for 2011 (up 1 from 2010) and is Spain’s third best restaurant behind the number two Mugaritz which we visited last night. I’d read a little bit about Arzak and to say that it was going to be different from our Mugaritz experience was putting it mildly. Where Mugaritz was about the simple flavours and simple styling, Arzak is all about bringing exciting and fantastic creations to the table – and I was very happy not to be disappointed tonight!

Arzak as a restaurant appeared a lot smaller than Mugaritz. Being located nearer to the city centre I guess it didn’t have the sprawling green space at its disposal. There was a front room and two dining rooms that we could see. We were directed to the upper floor dining room which was quite cosy and we felt like we were nearly sitting on top of our fellow diners! Just kidding … but we were quite close. On the plus side we could see the food being delivered to other tables and had a chance to re-hear some of the descriptions. 🙂

I was pleased that once seated they didn’t make us wait too long before bringing out the first offerings. I’m not really sure why sometimes some restaurants insist on you waiting an age before bringing food out! The quartet of amuse delivered to our table were very visual and pretty to behold, and tasted pretty darn good too.

Serrano Ham and Tomato surrounded by a cloud of Mint Smoke (a twist on sweet and sour); Marinated Anchovy and Strawberry with tangy cream sauce presented on a light box (surprisingly worked well and again a play on the sweet and sour balance); Yellow Crispy Rice with Mushroom (a good savoury mouthful); Kabraroka (Scorpion fish) Pudding with Kataifi (like hair prawns).

These were then chased down by a gorgeous Corn Soup with Fig and Black Pudding. Two favourite ingredients out of three wasn’t bad! For something so tiny it had great and complex flavouring. The black pudding added that extra bit of interest to the dish. The fact we were given these giant long spoons to eat/drink with was rather entertaining.

Having been stunned by these amuse bouche we were really looking forward to seeing what the Degustation menu had in store for us. We sure weren’t disappointed.

When the Cromlech Y Cebolla Con Te Y Café (Cromlech and Onion with Tea and Coffee) arrived on the table we didn’t really know what to think! Cromlech is commonly used to refer to stone circles so this was the outer shell. I think our waitress said it was made with manioc. Inside the delicate shell was silken foie gras (okay it looks better than the picture seems.) It was so melt in your mouth. The tea and coffee flavour was subtle.

Onion made an appearance again in our second dish – this time as the feature ingredient in the Bogavante Coralino (Lobster Reef.) What a bright colourful dish! Generous bite-size portions bathed in a tomato-type sauce sitting on perfectly sweet oinions. The sesame brittle added a good crunch and who doesn’t love toasted sesame seeds. This dish was accompanied by a tapioca salad which I didn’t think really added much to the dish. I’m not used to my meals like this having extra side dishes!

Playing with our minds a bit was the Mejillon Y Huevo Espolvoreado (Mussels and Dusted Egg) which followed. Smartly turning the mussel into the egg “yolk” this kind of was a bit of a trippy dish – only because I was expecting to bite into an egg and found mussel instead. I loved the herby crispy stuff on top without which the dish would have been too eggy.

Rape Marea Baja (Low tide Monkfish) was visually the cutest dish I’ve ever seen. Incredibly colourful (yes I know it can only be food die but still …) Let’s dissect this one ingredient by ingredient. The monkfish was beautiful (you can normally hardly go wrong), the mussel gel cells were cute but didn’t have much flavour, the Seaweed in tempura were slightly too hard to eat but I did like the sugar cells which were little candied treats. Did it all work together? I’m not sure. Visually it was a definite highlight and I’m sure we took more photos of this dish than any other and the monkfish was perfectly cooked, but the bits and pieces were more nice to look at than to eat. Interestingly we got an extra bowl with more shells, seaweed and stars too.

For our meat finale, there was a divergence on the next dish for Su Yin and I. Where she went for the Cordero Con Romero Y Curcuma (Lamb with Rosemary and Tumeric) which was accompanied with a side of tempura vegetable in black sesame.

I went for the Pichon Asado Con Maiz Y Flor De Azahar (Grilled Pigeon with Corn and Orange Blossom) The pigeon had a gorgeous charred flavour and was juicy without too much of the typical gaminess. It came served with an extremely fragrant peach sauce and accompanied by a salad with crispy rice, black sesame seeds and bacon and an extra pigeon leg!

Desserts were as equally visually stunning as our main dishes had been. Su Yin’s Sopa Y Chocolate “entre Vinedos” (Soup and Chocolate “among the vineyards”) was just so interesting. A strawberry soup which came with a scoop of rosemary sorbet and chocolate sorbet (served in a separate bowl) and the purple bubbles (which looked like grapes) contained warm molten chocolate inside.

I had opted for the non-chocolate dish and ended up with the Piedra De Pistacho Y Remolacha (Stone Pistachio and Beetroot.) This totally threw me for a loop. I really loved it. Served with a scoop of ice cream (can’t remember the flavour) it all combined very well.

Su Yin’s next dessert, Hidromiel Y Fractal Fluido (Mead Fluid and Fractal) came in two parts. This white plate was placed on the table containing a pool of clear, it turns out, honey syrup. In the mean time she had delivered to Su Yin what we think was white chocolate covering lemon curd. My bro would have loved this. The waitress then dropped a touch of red food colouring into the honey syrup which produced this stunning design. We didn’t know what to do with the dish as the waitress left at this point but then came back to pour it over Su Yin’s dish. It was only because we were busy taking photos that Su Yin was able to enjoy the dish as it was mean to be. We saw other tables starting to dig into the dish before the waitress poured the fractal liquid over. This was also served with apple ice cream.

My finale was the Dulce Lunatico (Lunatic Sweet) which were some sort of orange and passion fruit liquid encased in some sort of hard shell which I think was prepped using liquid nitrogen to keep the liquid inside but have the hard outer shell. There were also drops of reduced red win and sesame sugar. Served with banana ice cream. I quite enjoyed this dish – refreshing.

The petit fours – dark and white chocolate nuts and bolts, popping candy in cola jelly bottle caps, mango jelly lego pieces, white beans with red tea – really said it all about Arzak – unusual, a bit of wow factor, attention to detail, and trying to pack in a lot into small packages.

From a service perspective we couldn’t have asked for more. Our waitress was extremely efficient, spoke English well and was happy to banter with us. An example of her professionalism – when she came to serve us a dish and accidentally tipped part it over she immediately took it away to re-plate it, oh, and when Su Yin made a mess of our table she quickly ran over to place a serviette over the mess! Loved her. Note another table had a different waitress who pretty much just did the bare minimum (from the conversation we could hear) but I would put that down to the fact that she didn’t seem to speak English that well. We hadn’t realised it but the daughter of the father/daughter team, Elena Arzak, had been downstairs when we were busy taking photos of the outside. Both Juan, her father, and Elena came out to the restaurant at various times to speak individually to the diners and she said to us “I remember you from downstairs.” How nice. Juan’s conversation with us revolved around his brother in spirit Sydney’s Tetsuya Wakuda (owner of arguably Australia’s top restaurant), when he found out we were from Oz. All the waiters actually make a point of asking you where you from and oddly the one waiter asked us twice if we were in the food industry. As an added touch you are also given a personalised menu at the end of dinner. The one neg was the fact that our aperitifs of peach juice were charged at 8 euro a bottle! They weren’t even cocktails – we saw the waitress pour them from the bottles themselves and I swear you can buy them for about 80p here … that’s some mark-up.

I don’t want to end on a negative as Arzak was a great experience. We had an absolutely enjoyable time at Arzak and on comparison would say that I preferred it over our experience at Mugaritz but that is purely down, I think, to the excitement factor. Each dish was innovative and visually stunning and for the most part the flavours worked well together. Granted because there was such a focus on presentation that maybe sometimes dishes got over complicated but you can’t say that we didn’t say “wow” every time a new dish hit our table. For comparative purposes, the tasting menu was 175 euro.

San Sebastian and the local region is a hotbed for amazing food – whether its fine dining in any of the Michelin starred restaurants (San Sebastian has three three-star restaurants alone and the most Michelin stars per capita) or picking up something from the local pinxtos/tapas bars, you are guaranteed some pretty good nosh.

Mugaritz is only a two Michelin-starred restaurant but it climbed to number 3 (from #5 last year) in The World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards for 2011, just behind Spain’s top restaurant El Celler de Can Roca which sits at number 2 in the world. A bit of that climb, it has to be said, was arguably due to the (controversial) leaving out of El Bulli from the list – historically Spain’s top restaurant, was left out most likely because Ferran Adria announced it would close after the 2011 season.

I must admit part of the reason that Su Yin and I chose Mugaritz for a dining experience in San Sebastian was because of its position in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Ha ha – such foods snobs! We only had three nights in San Sebastian so we wanted to make the most of it ..

Mugartiz is located way outside of the centre of town, at least a 20 minute drive? so be prepared to factor in the cost of the cab to and from the restaurant (and also factor in the fact that at the end of the night the meter is also likely to start at a crazy 12 euro flag fall …) Its location is very quaint and beautifully green though.

When we first arrived at the restaurant, and after taking the obligatory photos on the outside, we were taken to sit outside in the garden area. We were kind of confused as this was not standard restaurant behaviour but soon they started to ply us with amuse bouche. First they put together a non-alcoholic (at our request) green tea, fresh mint and lime aperitif before bringing out focaccia with tomato smashed on to it. Very delicate.

Then a trio of treats: Starch and sugar crystal spotted with pepper praline and spider crab, Olives, tapa beans and thyme and Toasted legume beer. The beer was served as a broth (therefore warmed) and certainly … interesting. I wasn’t sure I was loving all the flavour combinations but I could appreciate the delicacy and thought that went into the dishes.

We were even more confused after we’d finished with our amuse bouches as plenty of waiters came walking around but never really indicated at any stage that we should move into the restaurant. Well, we took it upon ourselves to do so!

Inside, the restaurant was quite large but broken up by white screens. Pleasingly there was also a lot of space between the tables. Floor to ceiling windows lined the outside walls and until the sun set at least gave the room quite an open air feel. Oh, and we had a little bench for our bags which was quite cute.

Upon sitting down we were presented with two cards, one which was marked “150 min … submit!” and the other “150 min .. rebel!” Turning over there were words which were consistent with the words on the front – supposedly depending on which card you chose to run with it would determine how you would feel or interpret the food to come. Honestly, like the first half an hour we’d been at Mugaritz, it just caused more confusion!

So, that’s the intro for our experience before the food started to come proper. What did we eat? Our first course was a mouthful of “The greenness of tear peas animated by blood sorrel and mascarpone”. The peas were incredibly crunchy but I felt a little underwhelmed by the overall flavour of this dish.

The Anchovy and Vinegar sauce which came next wasn’t actually on our tasting menu so we were surprised by its arrival. If you like anchovy then you would love this dish (I didn’t) – very intense flavour.

Pickled onion, tendon and tuna essence followed. Whoever would have thought of pearing tuna essence and pickled onion? The essence was quite mild to be honest but I adored the onion. I could see that there was a trend developing in our dishes – that of showcasing the regional food with one primary ingredient instead of having all these things going on at once.

Taking a leaf out of Noma’s book (not really sure who started the concept) we got a bit interactive when a mortar and pestle was delivered to our table. We had the opportunity to break up a bunch of spices and seeds before the waiter threw in fresh herbs and poured in a fish broth.

The texture of the next dish of Silky bread stew, infused with pink geranium leaves covered with crabmeat was interesting. The crabmeat and the broth was divine, not sure I was loving the sogginess of the bread so much. I guess you could liken it to having dumplings in the soup.

A simple Hazelnut and beans stew was up next. I liked the sugar shards that topped the nuts.

A surprised break before our next dish – a visit to the kitchen! Score. Supposedly there are 35 chefs who work in the kitchen for one night’s sitting. The kitchen was very calm, as I’ve found with many fine dining restaurants. There is a separate kitchen for prepping new dishes, a separate area for cold stuff downstairs with a video so that when the chef needs an ingredient he gets it immediately after it is shelled. There are three chefs who manage the garden and herbs. It was cool to see all the induction lamps and also seeing the chefs using tweezers for presentation.

Pork noodles with “arraitxiki” extract and toasted rice was the dish that arrived at the table after our visit to the kitchen. This was another dish where I didn’t really like the texture of the ingredients. A bit too slimy for me (thank goodness at least for the crispiness of the toasted rice) and I felt it was a little over-seasoned.

Filet of hake and milky reduction of stewed cabbage sprouts. Luscious citrus spread. The hake was lovely and fresh but I was very surprised at how bland this dish was. Not sure what the thought behind the milky reduction was.

The Textures of coastal fish brought flavour back to the table. It was very simple but sometimes simple is all you need.

Quail Armagnac. What? Odd.

Mugaritz had not been following their menu very faithfully so we were afraid that the next dish of Iberian pork tails, crispy leaves and toasted sweet millet oil was going to be left out for the night! But they’d saved their best (savoury) dish for last! The tail was perfectly cooked, tender but with a very crispy skin. The only neg was that it was a little oily in the mouth and might turn off those who don’t like that feeling or too meaty a taste.

Cool vanilla brioche and barley cream was the first off the Sweet train. Refreshing and incredibly light – it felt like we were eating cold, vanilla flavoured air.

Sticking with the white theme, Lemon cream with daikon radish and unsweetened sugar was a delight. We Asians are used to mixing vegetables and sweetness so I wasn’t surprised that this dish worked very well.

Finally, my favourite dessert dish of the night: Broken “walnuts”, toasted and salted, cool milk cream and armagnac jelly. The three items of the edible walnut, the jelly inside it and the cream combined well to give the texture and balance that served to push the flavour of all three items to the fore.

From beginning to end Mugaritz was a perplexing experience for me. Some dishes were okay, some dishes were disappointingly bland or of weird texture, with one or two dishes which stood out (but in comparison to some other restaurants I’ve been to didn’t actually come out and grab me as too exciting.) Service-wise it too was a mixture of experiences – slow at first with water top-ups (which at least was free), plates were never actually placed in front of me but off to the side, bread wasn’t provided until about the fifth course (is this a Spanish thing?), coats weren’t ready upon leaving and there was no offer to call for a taxi ahead of time so we ended up waiting for nearly 20 minutes for one to arrive at the end of our meal. On the other hand we were brought into the kitchen and for the most part our waiters were friendly. Don’t forget the added touch of toothbrushes in the toilets.

I really wanted to love Mugaritz (especially at 165 euro (before service!) but I hate to say that at the most all I can say is that it was alright.

PS I do have to point out that other tables who appeared to be having a different sort of tasting menu seemed to have food which was both more substantial and delicious tasting. Perhaps you get different dishes upon subsequent dishes?