A Gros neighborhood local that puts its tortilla española front and center — thick, golden, trembling in the middle the way a proper tortilla should be. While the Parte Vieja gets the tourists, Txalupa gets the surfers and families from Zurriola beach two blocks away, which tells you everything about the atmosphere.
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Insider Intel
The tortilla is the reason to come — cooked fresh in batches and served in thick, wobbly wedges that are still liquid in the center. Beyond the tortilla, the cold pintxos are honest and well-made. Pair everything with a glass of txakoli poured from height into a tumbler.
After a morning at Zurriola beach, between 1pm and 2pm, when the Gros surf crowd fills the bar. The neighborhood energy here is fundamentally different from the Parte Vieja — looser, younger, salt-haired.
Gros is the surfer and young professional neighborhood on the east side of the Urumea river, and Txalupa is its neighborhood pintxos bar. No tourist circuit reaches here regularly. The tortilla is the draw but the whole counter is solid. A good first stop on a Gros-specific bar crawl that avoids the old town entirely.