Mina

A small dining room facing the Ribera market, and one of the most respected modern-Basque tasting menus on the Cantabrian coast.

The chef and the location

Álvaro Garrido is one of the most distinctive self-taught chefs in northern Spain. He opened Mina with his partner Lara Martín on the Ría’s south bank in 2006 — across the water from the Mercado de la Ribera, the largest covered market in Europe. The Michelin star arrived in 2012 and has stayed there since. The restaurant is small, the kitchen is open, and the chef cooks every service.

The room

Twenty-five seats, white walls, a single line of chef’s-counter stools facing the kitchen. The view through the front windows is the river and, on the far side, the Ribera market and the slate-roofed casco viejo. The room is calm without being precious — the kind of dining room where you can spend three hours and not notice the time.

What to order

The kitchen runs two seasonal tasting menus — the shorter one and the long one — and almost no à la carte. The cooking leans heavily on Cantabrian seafood and inland Basque vegetables, often built around fermentation, slow oxidation, and broths that reduce for days. Specific dishes rotate; what stays is the technique. The wine list rewards Basque txakoli and small Rioja Alavesa producers.

Honest verdict

This is the Bilbao tasting menu to book if you want a kitchen with a personality rather than a corporate fine-dining experience. The room is human-sized. The cooking has its own grammar. Do the long menu with the wine pairing, sit at the counter, and watch the kitchen work.

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