EBG Rating: 7.5/10

Choice/Quality of Drinks:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Decent wine selection and sherries with basic beer options and perfunctory back bar.

Style/Décor:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Eye catching frontage displaying its heritage and allegiance with Atletico Bilbao colours. Inside, a refurbished but traditional interior of exposed beams, hanging hams, murals with simple furnishings.

Atmosphere/Character:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
The typical busy, social and intimate space at the bar is typical of Bilbao and of Spanish bars generally, but expect a casual feel, far more than the “Restaurant” label out front would have you believe. This is a bar!

Amenities/Events:
❤️❤️❤️
Food, snacks, TV

Value For Money:
❤️❤️❤️
Not the cheapest but pretty much on par for this part of the city and quality is mainly in line.

Description:
Trading since 1952, Saibigain provides the visual touchstone for what visitors expect to see when entering a traditional Spanish bar. That is to say: Exposed beams, hanging hams and a long busy bar of people nibbling or trying to be served.

It’s a bar with spectacle and that includes the entrance which is adorned with Atletico Bilbao memorabilia, very much the leitmotif of the city’s bars.

An array of pinxtos stretched along the bar, shielded by the folk gathered around makes selecting look like you’re inspecting a police line-up, but it’s all part of the fun.

Saibigain trades on classics like croquettes and is known for stuffed peppers too, but options extend to full sized dishes ‘raciones’ which can be shared or enjoyed on your own.

Despite marketing itself as a restaurant the format and atmosphere is far too formal to even begin to consider it as such. This is a bar!

Casual, chatty, noisy and fluid, with basic seating and an absence of formalities.

As a consequence of its position on one of the original ‘7 streets’ in the Casco Viejo, this is undoubtedly one of the more popular spots. Visit in summer and you’ll find yourself among many tourists. Visit early spring or late autumn and the locals have returned to reclaim it.

With a minor sense of its own importance, this is a rare example among Bilbao bars of puffing its chest out (think the likes of Rinconcillo) although not overly distracting.

If you simply want a rich dive into what central Bilbao’s pinxtos scene is about with a bit of history all around you, this is as good a place as any to live that.

(Added November 2025)