The Best Seafood Near Ronquillo, by the Record

Live tanks near the entrance mean your turbot is swimming until you order it, priced by weight the way serious fish restaurants do things. La Bombi is an old-school Santander institution, a small-bar-up-front, several-dining-rooms-behind kind of place in the Puertochico district that keeps its focus squarely on what the sea delivers. Top-quality meats appear on the menu for those who ask, but the seafood is clearly why people keep coming back.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The name comes from a black crab that clings to the docks of the Puertochico district, which tells you something about how seriously this seafood restaurant takes its neighborhood. The bar up front runs loud and busy with tapas and raciones, a fish display sprawls beside a live lobster tank, and a calmer dining room sits behind it all. The rice dishes lean hard toward the sea, and the pan-cooked clams have a following.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Fish bought from the ports of Lekeitio and Ondarroa each morning is what drives the kitchen at this Michelin-starred Bilbao seafood restaurant. The chef built his reputation on baked wild fish and still holds that technical command, but the menu has grown to fold in Basque tradition alongside quietly inventive ideas. Tuna toffee macaroon, for instance, is not a joke. Two tasting menus run alongside the à la carte for anyone who wants the full argument.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

The grilled prawns arrive with no ceremony whatsoever, which is precisely the point. Zapirain is a traditional seafood restaurant, an old-school institution from the Basque coast that relocated to Bilbao after what sounds like a long and happy life in Lekeitio. The kitchen keeps things simple with fish and shellfish, letting the quality carry the weight, though a proper T-bone appears on the menu for anyone who wandered in expecting steak.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant