Casa Urola review

We were just cruising by this place after getting a bit tired of pintxos crawling and as luck would have it they had a spare table for us. This is a classic restaurant that opened in 1948 and it is located on the restaurant street Fermín Calbetón in the heart of the old town. We sat at a comfortable table next to a tank of fighting lobsters and ordered the following:

Crispy vegetables, langoustines and gambas with a reduction of sweet sherry vinegar

. This was a bit dull, but the seafood was nice enough.

Alubias ‘Babarrun beltza’ bean stew with stewed cabbage, crispy bacon and salted pickled green chillies

, which David found to be delicious even though he hates cabbage.

Daniel had a

salpicón of lobster with tomatoes and a spidercrab vinaigrette

which consisted of most of a lobster and was incredibly delicious.

Our main courses were:

Palourdes grilled with salt and lemon

, once again an excellently prepared grilled dish that really showed the quality of the ingredients, although it was a bit salty.

Again Daniel ordered wisely, choosing the

grouper supreme with onion, apple, cider vinegar and butter sauce

. The richness of the butter was cut by the apple and cider vinegar to produce a very pleasing effect. The grouper was perfect, indeed supreme.

For desserts we had:

Chocolate mousse with coffee bean and orange ice cream

, which was really rather nice.

Orange sabayon and caramelised coffee strings

which was light and airy unlike Daniel’s dessert:

French toast with nougat, sesame seeds and refreshing goat’s milk ice cream

. This was rather stodgy and lacked clarity and focus.

All in all this was a pretty good meal, and not outrageously expensive either. Considering the quality of the food this was very good value for money.

Daniel and David.