If food is how you get to know a place, San Sebastián belongs near the top of your Spain list.

The city sits on the coast of Spain’s Basque Country, and its food reputation is enormous. You do not need a twelve-course tasting menu to understand why. You need one pintxo, and then you need to be willing to walk to the next bar.

What exactly is a pintxo?

It started as a slice of baguette with something on top, held in place with a cocktail stick. The stick is where the name comes from.

The classic is still close to that. A Gilda is an olive, a salted anchovy and a pickled Ibarra chili pepper threaded on a stick, named for the Rita Hayworth film, and you will find it in nearly any bar in the Basque Country. Further along the same counter you may find something that looks like a dish from a serious kitchen, shrunk to two bites. Both are pintxos. A good evening usually includes both.

How going out for pintxos works

The food is only part of it. In San Sebastián, pintxos are a social evening, and nobody spends that evening in one place.

You go from bar to bar. At each stop you have one pintxo and a small drink, usually a zurito (a small beer) or a txikito (a small glass of wine), and then you move on. A few things make the first night easier:

• Cold pintxos sit out on the bar, and you help yourself.
• Hot pintxos are made to order, so ask for them at the bar.
• One round per bar is normal. Have what the bar is known for and keep walking.
• You pay on your way out.

The busiest streets for all of this are in the Parte Vieja, the old town, and in the Gros neighborhood.

The best bite in every bar

Every bar on those streets has one thing it does better than its neighbors. The whole game is knowing what that is before you order. Walk in cold and you will probably point at whatever looks best on the counter, and that is often not the bar’s best pintxo.

A private pintxos guide fixes that. They take you into places you would otherwise walk straight past, tell you what each one does well, and put a glass in your hand along the way: local wine, the Basque Country’s own txakoli, or sagardoa, the cider made from fermented apples with no sugar added.

If you are there between mid-January and late April, it is also cider house season in Astigarraga and Hernani, a short drive from the city. That deserves an evening of its own.

Ivone’s travel advisor tip

Do not try to see everything in one evening.

My favorite way to experience Europe is slowly. Leave one night in your itinerary with no checklist at all. Wander, eat, have a glass of wine, and let the city set the pace for once. San Sebastián is the right place for that night, especially if food is the reason you came.

Northern Spain is its own trip

Spain goes a long way past Barcelona and Madrid, and the food changes with every region. The pintxos counters up here have almost nothing in common with a long paella lunch in Valencia’s rice country, and either one is worth planning a trip around.

If you would rather spend a week eating well than ticking off monuments, the north is a good place to start.

Tell me what you love to do when you travel, and I will build your Spain itinerary around it.