The elegant early-20th-century expansion south of the old town — wide boulevards, the leafy Paseo de Sarasate, the city's Michelin-starred restaurants, and the grid where locals actually live and eat away from the tourist crush. Refined, residential, and quietly gastronomic.
Daytime
(5)The Monument to the Encierro on Paseo Hemingway. Ice cream at Heladería Nalia on Paseo de Sarasate. Pastries at Torrano. Shopping along Carlos III, the Ensanche's central axis.
Heladería Nalia
Open since April 1939, Nalia is the oldest and most traditional ice-cream shop in Pamplona — a summer institution that has scooped handcrafted ice cream made with local Navarran milk for generations of families. Its spot on the leafy Paseo de Sarasate, the Ensanche's grand tree-lined promenade, makes it the natural reward at the end of a warm afternoon's walk.
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Order: A cone or cup of the handcrafted ice cream — the recipes lean on local Navarran milk and decades of practice. Whatever the classic flavour of the day is will be the safe, right choice.Best: A warm afternoon or early evening, taken as a stroll along Paseo de Sarasate. Peak summer is when a place this old truly comes into its own.
Pastelería Torrano
Opened in November 1960 as 'Dulces Torrano' and known ever since as the House of the Coronillas — its signature crown-shaped pastry — Torrano is the Ensanche's beloved morning ritual, six decades of continuous baking that earned it a second nearby branch in 2019. Away from the tourist old town, it's where locals actually queue for their pastry and coffee, and the coronilla is the thing to try.
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Order: The coronilla — the crown-shaped pastry the house is named for — with a coffee. It's the signature and the reason six decades of locals keep coming back.Best: Morning, when the pastries are fresh and the Ensanche is on its way to work. A calm, local start to the day away from the old-town crowds.
Restaurante Alhambra
A Michelin Guide listing with a Bib Gourmand for its value, Alhambra is chef Javier Díaz Zalduendo's take on Navarran cuisine — cooking with identity and roots, given contemporary technique. It delivers much of the refinement of the starred houses at a gentler price, working seasonal regional produce through a large, comfortable dining room. The thinking diner's mid-to-upper option in the Ensanche.
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Order: The seasonal menu — Alhambra's strength is regional produce cooked with technique but without pretension. The Bib Gourmand signals genuine value at this level.Best: Lunch or dinner with a reservation. Closed Sundays and Tuesday/Wednesday evenings (except Sundays in May), so check the day before planning.
Restaurante Enekorri
Around four decades in business, Enekorri pairs a market-driven kitchen with a wine cellar serious enough to be a destination in its own right. Elaborate presentations, seasonal cooking and tasting menus have kept it near the top of Pamplona's crowded restaurant field, and it is one of the city's best addresses for the famous verduras de Navarra — the region's revered vegetables — done with real care.
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Order: The verduras de Navarra when in season, and a tasting menu paired from the notable wine cellar. The vegetable cookery is a regional highlight done well here.Best: Lunch or dinner; the seasonal menus are best when Navarre's vegetables are at their peak. Reserve ahead.
Restaurante Josetxo
A classic Navarran restaurant with more than forty years behind it, now in the hands of the third generation of the Eciolaza Oscaiz family, Josetxo has long been a benchmark for traditional cooking in the city. Its creative interpretations of local produce play out in a formal dining room on Plaza Príncipe de Viana — the kind of established, white-tablecloth house where Pamplona has marked its important occasions for decades.
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Order: The traditional Navarran dishes the house is known for, elevated with the kitchen's own touch. This is old-school, occasion dining — order accordingly.Best: Dinner, or a leisurely lunch. A formal room, so it suits an unhurried, dressed-up meal rather than a quick stop.
Evening & Night
(2)The serious dining happens here — Europa and Rodero for Michelin-starred Navarran cuisine, Alhambra for the Bib Gourmand version. Quieter than the old town, but this is where a proper dinner is booked.
Restaurante Europa
A Michelin-starred reference point for Navarran fine dining, where chef Pilar Idoate cooks a cuisine rooted in tradition with avant-garde touches. The kitchen orbits the region's seasonal treasures — wild mushrooms, farm eggs, black truffle, Iberian ham — and turns them into precise, refined plates. It is one of Pamplona's two Michelin houses and the more classically elegant of the pair.
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Order: The tasting menu, which showcases the seasonal Navarran produce the kitchen is built around — wild mushrooms and truffle in autumn, the region's vegetables in spring.Best: Dinner, booked well ahead. Closed Sundays and Monday/Tuesday evenings, with a late-August summer break — check the calendar before you plan.
Restaurante Rodero
The other of Pamplona's two Michelin-starred houses, Rodero is chef Koldo Rodero's cocina de autor — product-driven tasting menus that take Navarran ingredients as their starting point and push them somewhere more personal and creative. Near the bullring in the Ensanche, it is the more contemporary counterweight to Europa's classicism, and reservations are essential.
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Order: A tasting menu — Rodero's format is the way to experience the chef's product-led, creative interpretations of Navarran cooking.Best: Dinner with a booking made in advance. Close to the bullring, so it pairs naturally with a wander through the Ensanche beforehand.