In early December, I was in Boston for the annual Materials Research Society meeting. Always the week after Thanksgiving, this conference brings together materials scientists from all over the world to share their most recent results and ideas. It’s also a great opportunity to catch up with friends.

That includes non-scientist friends. We have some friends we met in Santa Fe that moved to Boston a few years ago to be closer to family. When I told them I was going to be in town, they jumped at the chance to get together. They also went above and beyond, inviting me to one of Boston’s newest foodie spots, Zurito.

Zurito opened only a month earlier, in November 2024. Situated in the Boston Commons area, it is in a great location, full of charm and character. The brownstones all around are witnesses to so much history. We took a stroll after dinner to take in all the great architecture. Many of the houses had plaques that detailed the history associated with them.

The place was packed! We had to have a reservation to even sit at the bar. It felt like a Basque taberna with so much ambiance – so much marcha – even if the pintxos weren’t on display all along the bar like you’d see in the Basque Country. We ordered a suite of pintxos to share, from beef cheeks (which I only recently tried in the Basque Country but thought they were wonderful) to traditional tortilla and patatas bravas to a plate of sliced chorizo. Everything was quite good, excellent even. The beef cheeks in particular took me back to that restaurant in Bilbo…

I originally asked for a kalimotxo and the bartender seemed a bit befuddled. When I instead asked for half wine, half coke, he then told me they were out of coke. So I “settled” for a glass of txakoli from Getaria, which was quite nice, though I never quite got over my missing kalimotxo.

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man and channeling my dad, the one thing about these types of places is the cost. My dad was always for quantity over quality and, while I do like good food, I can’t help but compare the prices with what they would be in the Basque Country. That said, we weren’t in the Basque Country and it is hard to get these flavors outside of Boise.

We ended the nice with a cheese platter, as they didn’t have any actual deserts. I expected that they might have membrillo, but instead they had a fruit spread that came with the cheese. Not quite the same, but it captured the basic essence.

Overall, while you might not hit Zurito on a weekly basis, if you are missing that pintxo experience Zurito does a great job of scratching that itch.