Meson Santi - Hazas de Cesto

My wife thought this place was better than I did. Pretty standard fare. Fine for a stop on your journey but nothing memorable.

Conveniently located just off the autopista between Bilbao and Santander, this is a superior example of a local restaurant in Spain. The menu del dia was 10 euros. I ordered white wine as my menu drink, they brought a liter bottle, the quantity was better than the quality, but it was drinkable. First courses were green beans, lentil soup, and mixed salad. The latter was better than average with generous lashings of tuna, tomatoes, olives, and white asparagus. The lentil soup had a chunk of chorizo for flavoring and was brought in a large serving bowl so you could eat as much or as little as you wished. Second courses were steak, croquetas, and cabracho, served with fries. All were delicious, the cabracho, otherwise known as scorpionfish, was perfectly cooked, in a tangy tomato sauce, as good a fish dish as I've ever had in Spain. Put another way, you would expect average cooking in a place like this and it was average to above average to superb, depending on the dish. There were tempting desserts on offer but sadly we had no room, opting instead to substitute coffee. The servers were friendly and efficient, tables in the attractive dining room were spaced out for Covid, and there was a large terrace, 10% extra, that we avoided because it was a cold and windy summer day.

Awful place, it looks nice from the outside but as soon as you go in, you can tell you are going to be disappointed. The waiter doesn’t treat you well unless you are a local, and being from Spain, I can say that they don’t use good products for their food. A shame considering how well you can eat in the north of Spain.

Spectacular, the menu of the day for 12 € food of 10!

Abundant menu and very rich everything. the deal on the part of the very friendly service, and pretty fast even though it was late and there were a lot of people.