Restaurant in Santander, Spain
Cantabrian tasting menus in a 19C property.
Casona del Judío holds a 2024 Michelin star and operates two tasting menus — Festival and Chef's Table — from a 19th-century colonial property in Santander. Chef Sergio Bastard's kitchen is built around Cantabrian coastal ingredients, particularly algae and marine herbs. At €€€€ pricing, this is the right booking for serious tasting menu diners; book weeks ahead, as post-star demand has made tables hard to secure.
The common assumption about Casona del Judío is that the setting is the story — a 19th-century colonial-era property in the Repuente district that draws visitors as much for its architecture as its food. That framing undersells what chef Sergio Bastard is actually doing here. The building is a backdrop, not the point. The point is one of the most technically focused Michelin-starred tasting menus in northern Spain, built almost entirely around the Cantabrian coast's algae, herbs, and marine larder. Book this if you want a serious tasting menu experience in Santander. Do not book it if you want a flexible à la carte dinner or a quick midweek meal.
Casona del Judío earned its Michelin star in 2024, which positions it as one of the newer additions to Spain's starred dining map — but the kitchen's approach has been evolving toward this recognition for years. The recent formalization of that recognition matters for how you should think about booking: demand has increased since the star, and securing a table now requires planning well in advance. This is not a walk-in venue in any practical sense.
Chef Sergio Bastard structures the experience around two tasting menus: the Festival menu and the more intimate Chef's Table format. Both are grounded in local Cantabrian ingredients, with particular emphasis on algae and coastal herbs that don't appear in most restaurant kitchens at this level of precision. The Cantabrian coast is one of Spain's most productive marine environments, and Bastard's menus read that provenance into every course rather than gesturing at it decoratively.
The arrival sequence is worth understanding before you go. Guests enter through the Casona itself, where the chef presents and explains snacks in a dedicated room before the table is reached. This is not a gimmick , it functions as a palate briefing, orienting you to the flavor language of the meal ahead. By the time you sit down, you have context for what follows. The anchovy brine called Salmuria, which Bastard stores in small bottles and deploys in sauces to add precise salinity, is the kind of detail that signals how methodically the kitchen thinks about seasoning. Documented starters have included Verdina beans with red prawns and brine-cured squid with black garlic macaroon , dishes that use local ingredients as primary flavors, not as garnish.
The scent profile of the space reflects this coastal-botanical focus: the interplay of brine, dried herbs, and the old stone of the Casona creates an atmosphere that signals what the kitchen is doing before a dish arrives. It is a subtle but effective sensory framing that few restaurants in this price tier manage to achieve without contrivance.
For explorers comparing this to Spain's wider tasting menu canon, Casona del Judío is operating at a different register than the headline three-star venues. It does not have the scale of El Celler de Can Roca in Girona or the decades-deep archive of Arzak in San Sebastián. What it offers is tighter, more focused, and rooted in a coastline that even experienced Spanish dining travelers have rarely had translated into this form. If your interest is in how a single marine terroir can sustain a full tasting menu, this is a more instructive evening than a trip to Azurmendi in Larrabetzu or Martin Berasategui in Lasarte-Oria, where the ambition is broader and the ingredient story more diffuse. For a closer tonal comparison, Quique Dacosta in Dénia pursues a similar marine-led precision on Spain's southeastern coast , different sea, comparable philosophy.
Casona del Judío's editorial angle is worth addressing directly. The venue operates tasting menus, which means the structural difference between lunch and dinner is more about pace and price than about fundamentally different menus. Lunch sittings at tasting menu restaurants of this tier in Spain typically allow you to experience the same kitchen at a lower total cost , menus are often shorter or priced differently at midday, and wine consumption tends to be lighter, reducing the final bill. If the venue offers a lunch service (confirm directly when booking, as hours data is not published in full), it represents the better value entry point for first-timers who want to assess whether the full Chef's Table format is worth returning for.
Dinner at Casona del Judío carries more ceremony, more time, and the fuller tasting menu format. The Chef's Table option in particular suits an evening visit, where the extended sequence and the pre-meal snack presentation in the Casona's reception room can unfold without the time pressure a midday sitting sometimes creates. If you are visiting Santander specifically for this meal and have flexibility, an evening booking lets you experience the Casona's architecture in different light and allows the meal to breathe at the pace it was designed for. For a first visit on a tighter schedule or budget, lunch is the more efficient choice. For the complete version of what Bastard is building, dinner is it.
Casona del Judío is priced at €€€€, placing it at the leading of Santander's restaurant market. Google reviewers rate it 4.4 across 882 reviews, a high score for a venue at this price point where critical scrutiny tends to be sharper. The Michelin star (2024) is the primary trust signal and the most useful benchmark for setting expectations: one star indicates high-quality cooking worth a detour, not necessarily a destination journey in itself. For travelers already in Santander or the Cantabria region, that detour calculation is direct , book it. For those traveling specifically for the meal, cross-reference against other starred destinations in the Basque Country or Catalonia to calibrate effort against reward.
Booking is hard. Post-star demand in 2024 has tightened availability. Contact the venue well in advance , weeks rather than days for weekend tables, and the Chef's Table format likely requires even more lead time given its more intimate configuration. No online booking platform data is available; contact directly via the venue's physical address at C. Repuente, 20, 39012 Santander.
For more dining options across the city, see our full Santander restaurants guide. If you are building a longer itinerary, our Santander hotels guide, bars guide, wineries guide, and experiences guide cover the rest of the city's options. Within the restaurant tier, El Serbal, Cadelo, Daría, Umma, and Agua Salada are the most relevant comparisons at lower price points.
Quick reference: Michelin 1 Star (2024) · €€€€ · Two tasting menus (Festival and Chef's Table) · Google 4.4/5 (882 reviews) · Booking: hard, contact venue directly well in advance · Address: C. Repuente, 20, 39012 Santander.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casona del Judío | Modern Cuisine | €€€€ | If you would like to eat in a really special setting, book a table at Casona del Judío, as it’s not every day that you get the chance to enjoy a Michelin-starred experience in an authentic 19C colonial-style property. Here, chef Sergio Bastard impresses guests by shining the spotlight on local ingredients as well as algae and herbs from the Cantabrian coast. He offers two tasting menus (Festival and Chef’s Table) on which guests can savour dishes influenced by the sea, with a fusion of textures and a constant focus on pinpoint presentation (we especially enjoyed the starters, such as the Verdina beans with red prawns, and the brine-cured squid with a black garlic macaroon). Access is via the Casona, which features a room in which the chef creates and explains his snacks before guests take their seats. Once seated, they will discover innovative culinary creations such as Salmuria, an unusual anchovy brine that he stores in small bottles and uses in sauces, in particular, to provide enhanced flavour and to add a touch of saltiness to his dishes.; If you would like to eat in a really special setting, book a table at Casona del Judío, as it’s not every day that you get the chance to enjoy a Michelin-starred experience in an authentic 19C colonial-style property. Here, chef Sergio Bastard impresses guests by shining the spotlight on local ingredients as well as algae and herbs from the Cantabrian coast. He offers two tasting menus (Festival and Chef’s Table) on which guests can savour dishes influenced by the sea, with a fusion of textures and a constant focus on pinpoint presentation (we especially enjoyed the starters, such as the Verdina beans with red prawns, and the brine-cured squid with a black garlic macaroon). Access is via the Casona, which features a room in which the chef creates and explains his snacks before guests take their seats. Once seated, they will discover innovative culinary creations such as Salmuria, an unusual anchovy brine that he stores in small bottles and uses in sauces, in particular, to provide enhanced flavour and to add a touch of saltiness to his dishes.; Michelin 1 Star (2024) | Hard | — |
| El Serbal | Modern Cuisine | €€€ | Michelin 1 Star | Unknown | — |
| Cañadío | Asturian, Traditional Cuisine | €€ | Unknown | — | |
| La Bombi | Spanish, Farm to table | €€€ | Unknown | — | |
| Bodega Cigalena | Spanish | Unknown | — | ||
| Agua Salada | Contemporary | €€ | Unknown | — |
How Casona del Judío stacks up against the competition.
The format here is tasting menu only — Festival or Chef's Table — so arrive knowing you are committing to a full multi-course experience, not ordering à la carte. Chef Sergio Bastard's kitchen focuses on Cantabrian coastal ingredients: algae, herbs, local seafood, and his signature Salmuria anchovy brine. The experience begins in the Casona itself, where the chef presents snacks before you move to the dining room. This is a Michelin-starred restaurant at €€€€ pricing, so budget and pace expectations accordingly.
The 19th-century colonial property and Michelin-starred context point toward polished dress — think neat trousers, a shirt or blouse, and closed shoes rather than trainers or beachwear. The venue does not publish an explicit dress code in available data, but at €€€€ with a tasting-menu format, dressing as you would for a formal dinner in Spain is the safe and appropriate call.
The Casona's property format — a colonial-era building with a dedicated snack room and seated dining area — suggests capacity for small-to-medium groups, but specific private dining or maximum group-size details are not published in available data. For groups larger than four, check the venue's official channels before booking to confirm seating arrangements and whether both tasting menus can run simultaneously for a party.
At €€€€, it is Santander's most expensive dining bracket, but the 2024 Michelin star gives the pricing a verifiable anchor. The kitchen's focus on hyper-local Cantabrian ingredients — including foraged coastal herbs and algae — and the property itself make this more than a standard starred room. Against peers like El Serbal (also starred, more conventional format), Casona del Judío justifies the premium primarily for the setting and Bastard's ingredient-led approach. If you want à la carte flexibility at lower spend, Cañadío or La Bombi are more practical choices.
The venue runs tasting menus at both services, so the kitchen output is structurally the same regardless of sitting. The practical difference is ambient: the 19th-century colonial property likely reads differently in afternoon light versus evening. Lunch may offer slightly easier reservation windows if dinner slots fill first, but both sittings access the same two menus — Festival and Chef's Table — so the decision is mainly personal preference on timing and atmosphere rather than a meaningful quality gap.
Yes, if tasting-menu dining is a format you are comfortable with — and specifically if Cantabrian coastal cooking interests you. Sergio Bastard's menus are built around local algae, herbs, seafood, and his Salmuria anchovy brine, giving the experience a regional specificity you will not find at Santander's more conventional restaurants. The Michelin star (awarded 2024) validates the kitchen's precision. If you prefer picking individual dishes, skip this and book Cañadío or Agua Salada instead.
Location
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