Restaurante Kokotxa (San Sebastián, SPAIN) ★★★☆☆

We arrived at San Sebastián's Old Town a few hours early thinking that we could easily kill off the extra time but we couldn't be more wrong in that regard. As temperature continues to drop and our legs taking their tolls from a long trip, we decided that we'd rather find a place to spend our remaining two hours than walking in the cold.



After spending some time at Restaurante Munto Jatetxea, it was almost time for our dinner and it was a highly anticipated one (not as highly anticipated as the one tomorrow!). Tucked away at an overlooked back alley in the Old Town, Restaurante Kokotxa is one of the most highly regarded restaurant in the historic centre of San Sebastián, powered by Chef Dani López and Estela Velasco, two of the brightest chefs coming out of Basque Country.



I have never been a fan of late dinners and the earliest start time at 8:30pm, that's pretty late. Little nugget would be sleeping at this hour back home but we were just raring to go here.

Restaurante Kokotxa offers two tasting menus at lunch and dinner (€88 and €120). There's no a la carte option available. I would love to have the longer menu but since it was already a very late start, I had to go with the shorter one or else little nugget won't get to sleep until midnight.



January is considered the low-season for traveling to Spain so not surprisingly, we were just one of three groups here tonight.



We were started off with some long bread sticks and a mayo dip.



It was followed by some lovely canapes including a green sponge cake with dabs of chive mayo, a crispy pita bread topped with creamy fish aioli and finally a mochi-like pudding which I forgot to jot down the details of.



I had no doubt in my mind that I would eventually see Spanish mackerel at some point tonight but the first course of the tasting menu? The marinated mackerel was paired with a slice of smoked "curd", a type of Spanish cheese, radish, confit raspberry, finished off with a mildly acidic apple juice. It was a decent start but nothing that blows me away with its presentation and combination of flavors.



The second dish of the night was a vegetable dish with artichoke, dehydrated pumpkin, mushrooms, red cabbage purée and Iberico pork floss. It was served with a relatively mild Hollandaise sauce.



Like most Michelin starred restaurants, the kitchen here was kind enough to prepare something specially for my little nugget. Tonight it was a simple pasta dish with butter-poached pasta matched up against some local Iberico pork. I'm not sure if he's sleepy or anything but he didn't look interested at all.



Next up were broad beans, clams and mussels all hidden underneath a pile of pil pil sauce. Not bad.



Our fish course was pan-seared hake fish with cauliflower purée and pigeon ragu. This, along with the previous broad beans dish were two of the better dishes tonight for sure. The rest I would probably forget about when I wake up tomorrow morning.



Iberico pork shoulder with baby carrots, leeks and sweet pesto wrapped things up clearing way for dessert. Again a decent dish but I thought the pork shoulder was a little bit chewy. 



The first of our two desserts comprised of hibiscus sponge cake, yogurt ice-cream and mint purée.



This wasn't bad. In fact, I thought it fared a little better than most of our savory dishes.



Lastly, orange cream, pineapple, cocoa, hazelnut ice-cream and chocolate sponge. Thankfully, it was only 10:15pm so there was still a chance we could get back to our hotel before midnight.



Petite fours were chocolate chip cookies, muffins, chocolate truffles and mango passion fruit jelly.

Every dish tonight was reasonably well-cooked but I was expecting a lot more from two of the most talented chefs from Basque Country. I had the feeling that they tried way too hard to make their dishes contemporary and minimalist that they totally missed out on the most important part of a culinary experience - the WOW factor. In fact, I was disappointed that there wasn't a single dish from tonight's menu that truly stood out with its texture and flavor profile. Everything tasted reasonably good but in this day and age, it's probably enough to lure your customers back. It certainly didn't do enough to lure us back. Not even close. Obviously, I couldn't hide my disappointment; not when I'm giving up the chance to catch up on my sleep (my little nugget too!).





Food Rating: 5.5/10
Price: €€€
Address: Calle del Campanario, 11, 20003 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain
Tel: +34 943-421904
Website: www.restaurantekokotxa.com
Opening Hours: 1:30pm - 3:00pm, 8:30pm - 10:30pm (Tue - Sat)