A free Basque festival is landing in the middle of the City for one Saturday, with cider poured from above head height, a row of pop-up bars and a public vote to settle which croqueta is best. The ticket costs nothing and comes with a drink.
Bar Kroketa is running Pintxo-Pote at Broadgate Circle on Saturday 26 September, noon to 6pm, inside the restaurant and out on the circle itself.
What pintxo-pote actually is
In San Sebastián and Bilbao, pintxo-pote is a fixed weekly ritual: a set low price gets you a pintxo and a drink, you have one, and then you leave and do it again next door. Nobody stays put. The moving is the point.
Broadgate Circle is not a Basque old town, so the format has been inverted: instead of you walking between bars, a series of pop-up barstops ring the circle and you work your way round them. Each one pours something different, and the producers are there behind them.
What is being poured
Txakoli, the thin, faintly fizzy, very dry white that Basque bartenders pour from a height into a wide glass to knock some air through it. It looks like showing off and it is actually doing something to the wine.
Alongside it: natural Basque cider, the sharp, still, faintly farmyard kind rather than anything sweet, Basque wines with Rioja among them, beer, and drinks built around the region.
The croqueta vote
Bar Kroketa is a croqueta-led bar with three London sites, so this is the part it cares about. A selection is out to taste across the day and everyone gets a vote, with the winner crowned Pintxo-Pote People’s Champion. Expect the sort of strong opinions that only ever attach to fried things.
Beyond that there are gildas, the skewered olive, anchovy and guindilla pepper combination that is the founding pintxo and still the best argument for the whole genre, plus the rest of the kitchen’s pintxos. Live Basque music runs through the afternoon.
The London x London Take: free food-festival tickets usually mean free entry to a place selling you things, and that is broadly true here, but the welcome glass of cider is real and the format is genuinely better than the usual street-food-stall setup. What makes it worth the trip is the producers standing behind the barstops: txakoli is a wine most Londoners have had once, badly, at room temperature, and this is a chance to have it poured properly by someone who can tell you why. Book rather than walk in, because walk-ins do not get the cider. Go at noon, not four, if you want to talk to anyone.
Need to know
- What: Pintxo-Pote, a Basque food and drink festival from Bar Kroketa
- Where: Bar Kroketa, 36 Broadgate Circle, London EC2M 2QS, and out on the circle
- When: Saturday 26 September 2026, 12pm to 6pm
- Price: free, and the ticket includes a welcome glass of cider. Food and drink extra on the day
- Booking: free tickets here. Walk-ins welcome but do not get the cider
- Nearest station: Liverpool Street
- More: kroketa.co.uk
Drinking around it? Our guide to the best bars in London covers the rest, and things to do in Shoreditch has where to go once the circle shuts at six.
