The Rules of Txikiteo, and the Original Cheesecake

Txikiteo is the thing this tour teaches, and it has one rule, which is that there are no rules. You go from bar to bar, eat one pintxo and drink one glass in each, standing at the counter among people you do not know, and then you move. Nobody sits. Nobody stays. It is a whole evening built out of five minutes at a time.

Three hours, private, up to eight people from your group, meeting at the drummer monument in Plaza Sarriegi.

Five pintxos and five drinks, enough for a full meal. The pintxo began as something plain, a slice of potato omelette or ham on bread, and the bars of the Basque Country escalated it against each other for decades until it became miniature cuisine. Every historian tells the story differently, and you will hear some of the versions.

So will you hear about the drinking, which the guide treats as the other Basque religion. Txakoli, dry and faintly sparkling, grown on vineyards within sight of the Cantabrian and made for fish. Cider, low in alcohol, slightly sweet and slightly bitter, with the one danger that it goes down like water; sixteenth-century Basque sailors on long Atlantic voyages barely suffered scurvy because of what they drank. And the zurito, a 20 to 25 centilitre beer, sized so it stays cold for exactly one pintxo. Ask for a zurito in Madrid and nobody will understand you.

The last stop is the cheesecake. San Sebastián cheesecake is now made everywhere, burnt on top, creamy to the middle, no base, and this is where it comes from.

Wheelchair accessible, guided in English or Spanish. Minimum drinking age eighteen. Tell them about dietary requirements at booking. Note that most of these bars have no seats.