What to eat in Pamplona?

What does our larder have to offer? Excellent vegetables from la Ribera such as cardoon, artichoke, fresh white beans, asparagus and piquillo peppers, as well as foie gras, mushrooms and flavoursome meats which have an unbeatable accompaniment - the red, rosé and white wines with DO Navarre and Rioja. And let’s not forget the desserts - cheese, curd, rolled wafer sticks and leche frita (a fried mixture of flour, milk and sugar), rounded off with the typical local digestif called pacharán.

Pamplona has a wide offer of restaurants whose menus are designed to suit all tastes and budgets and where you can relish miniature delicacies: pintxos.

Starters

• Tudela Lettuce Hearts. Grown all year round, they are usually served accompanied by anchovies and olives, or as a garnish to main dishes. Piquillo peppers. With an unmistakable flavour, they are known as the “red gold” of the Navarran allotments. They are picked in autumn and have a designation of origin. As a starter they are served with olive oil and garlic. They can also be served as a main dish, stuffed with meat or fish.
• Asparagus. With specific designation, they are harvested in spring.
• Fritos. They are usually eaten as a snack or as a starter. They are similar in appearance to croquettes, and are filled with béchamel sauce and a main ingredient. There are many kinds: ham and cheese, pepper, mushroom, egg, tigres (mussels).

First Courses

• Cardoon a la Navarra, with a fried garlic, flour and ham sauce, though there are other varieties. Winter.
• Artichokes. The local variety is “Blanca de Navarra”, which can be served cooked, fried, and as a main ingredient in menestra vegetable stew. Winter.
• Borage. It is cooked with potato or as an ingredient in menestra vegetable stew. Summer.
• Menestra vegetable stew. This has four main ingredients: asparagus, artichokes, peas and broad beans, though other vegetables may be used. It is the star dish from the Navarran allotments.
• Pochas. These beans are harvested in summer before they have matured, served with fried peppers, onion and ham. 

Main Courses

• Chilindrón lamb. With a sauce made from garlic, peppers, white wine and dried peppers.
• Roast suckling pig. The suckling pig is roasted in a wood-burning oven.
• Relleno. This is a kind of white black pudding, made with cooked rice, egg and saffron instead of blood.
• Ajoarriero. Traditional recipe using cod pieces stewed with red and green pepper, tomato, onion and potato. 
• Trout a la Navarra. With fried serrano ham.

Desserts

• Roncal and Idiazábal cheese. Idiazábal is made from latxa sheep cheese, a black-headed Pyreneen breed. It is intense in flavour with a slight tang. Like Idiazábal, Roncal is tangy, though it has a more buttery texture.
• Cuajada. Made from sheep milk and rennet, this junket has a very particular flavour as a hot stone is placed into it during production, giving it a distinctive smoked flavour.
• Goxua. Dessert made from cream, cake and pastry cream, which can be served as a tart or in individual dishes.
• Pantxineta. Pastry filled with pastry cream and covered with sliced almonds.
• Txantxigorri Tart. Linked to the slaughter of the pig, these tarts are made with greaves, lard and cinnamon, and are usually eaten warm.

Drinks and Liquors

• Wine. Navarre has its own designation of origin for wines. Our autonomous community boasts an exceptional location in terms of wine making, as Continental, Atlantic and Mediterranean climates all converge here. Navarran rosé wine is well known, but the full range is very broad, with young, aged and reserve red wines, Chardonnay whites, and finally sweet tasting muscatel
• Pacharan. Traditional Navarran liquor. It is made using local sloes and aniseed.
• Cider. It is mainly produced in the north of Navarre. Traditionally, apple pressing ended with the sound of the kirikoketa, an instrument made of planks and maces used for pressing, which was played in the village square in accompaniment to a popular song.