Mugaritz belongs to the new breed of fine dining restaurants with main focus on molecular gastronomy just like the former El Bulli. No big surprise that the Head Chef Andoni Luis Aduriz apprenticed at El Bulli before he started Mugaritz, that today is one of the best restaurants in the Basque country and one of the best in the world as well.

Andoni Luis Aduriz likes to tell his guests a story while they dine and it starts already before the restaurant is entered after a nice drive from San Sebastian to the hills of Donostia. You enjoy a glass of cava on the terrace while you are served the first pre-starter of something that looks like beautiful grey stones, but they are in fact boiled potatoes which you eat with some mayonnaise. And already here, before you even have entered the restaurant you understand that the journey you are on for this evening will be something truly amazing.

Mugaritz is so much. It really feels like you are dining at a restaurant that is neither 1990 nor 2025. It is that year you eat at the restaurant and it is right now. Andoni Luis Aduriz takes you on a ride, where each separate dish tells you something and the story continues to the next dish without any hesitation or abruptions. Your dinner will have a perfect flow and it feels like there are not ten different courses you will have, no, it feels like one course that just changes in flavours during the evening.

You can expect everything to be very locally produced, indeed. Vegetables and herbs from the garden of Mugaritz will be on your plate. Some of the pure vegetarian dishes you will have are the very best vegetarian you can have, anywhere.

Mugaritz suffered from a severe fire in the spring of 2010, but after a busy renovation the restaurant now has one of the most stellar kitchens in the world and a dream to work in if you are a chef, with top modern equipment and big windows to view the beautiful Basque landscape.

Andoni Luis Aduriz teases your mind and serves you food that looks like something, but tastes like something else. It starts already with the first potatoes you are having and ends with the warm artisan tablet with whipped honey and oats that looks like it is soap. It is not that easy to choose one favorite dish when the whole menu is so perfectly matched and is experienced as one long dish divided into ten courses. Like some of the best music albums from Pink Floyd or similar. Not just one hit song – the whole album is a hit.

Mugaritz is academic, but in the laid-back way you remember the best moments of your time at college when you were sitting with your friends and talking about changing the world. Mugaritz is philosophic, but in a way where you will not be confused, no, you will actually have all the answers. Mugaritz is culinary art, and this time you will think it was worth every penny spent.

Written by Andy