Perfect Hotel For Foodies In Spain's Michelin-Star Gastronomy Capital

Forbes

06-05-2025

San Sebastian curves around what is often ranked the Best Beach in Spain, and the Nobu Hotel has an ... More ultra-premium location in the middle of it. getty
San Sebastian is undoubtedly the gastronomic capital of Spain, and by any measure one of the most important food cities on earth. However, despite its many appeals, charms and growing popularity, it has long been underserved by standout and luxury hotels, with only a handful of top choices. That's why the newish (less than two years) Nobu Hotel San Sebastian is such a big addition. Not only does it have a perfect best-in-y town location and great food of its own, but the hotel has curated several local culinary experiences that will make any visiting food lover swoon. Nobu is a perfect hotel for foodies in Spain's Michelin-Star gastronomy capital.
San Sebastian is in the heart of Northern Spain's Basque region, a melting pot of the distinctive local cuisine and a world epicenter of molecular gastronomy. It has two dozen Michelin-starred and rated restaurants, with more stars per capita than Paris, nearly three times as many as overall star leader Tokyo, and nearly eight times as many as New York City. The star ratio blows away London, Rome, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Singapore, Beijing and Shanghai, and is nearly double that of Lyon, France's similarly famous capital of gourmet cuisine.
Two of the best reasons to visit San Sebastian in one stop: Spanish ham and tapas. getty
But fancy high-end food is just the tip of the iceberg, and the city appeals to food lovers on many other levels. San Sebastian is perhaps most famous as the tapas capital of Spain, except they speak Basque first, so here they are called pintxos. There are pintxo bars everywhere you turn, the selection is unbelievable, and you could spend a week eating nothing else—and leave very happy.
The city also anchors one of the world's greatest steakhouse regions, and Northern Spain is famous for its local cattle breed, consumed much older than is the norm elsewhere, and its signature cut, chuleton, or in Basque, Txuleta. This is essentially a huge, thick rib steak, served for two to four, heavily salted and always cooked over open fire. It is Spain's answer to Italy's famed Bistecca Fiorentina, and while less well-known globally, many prominent food experts have ranked Spain as the world's best place for steak, including famed Vogue critic Jeffrey Steingarten and London's Guardian newspaper. I have had several 'oh my God' steak dinners here, and this is a story I wrote at Forbes about Basque beef culture and a temple of steak outside San Sebastian that is routinely ranked in the world's top five steakhouses. It is just one of many standouts.
The view from Nobu's restaurant terrace—and every single guest room—is unrivalled. Nobu Hotels
Then there is the local hard cider culture, represented in sidrerias, cider producers that also serve food, traditionally a prix fixe multi-course meal that is pretty much the same menu everywhere you go. It is a big, family-style feast that includes local cod, omelets, chorizo, and is anchored by a platter of txuleta, plus all you can drink cider served straight from the cask. It is a very festive, fun and satisfying style of dining found only in this region, and definitely worth doing at least once. While most are at rural apple orchards outside the city, San Sebastian's best, an excellent urban sidreria, sits just five-minutes walk from Nobu.
Amidst all of the specialized Spanish cuisine it might be tempting to overlook Chef Nobu Matsuhisa's globally famous Peruvian/Japanese fusion, but his dishes actually fit perfectly in this landscape. Fishing villages abound, and the area is famed for seafood, the staple of Nobu signatures like miso black cod and rock shrimp tempura, and this menu is in a very similar vein to the globally influenced local fine dining. In fact, locals often pair seafood and peppers, like his famous yellowtail sashimi with jalapeno. Among all celebrity chef multi-outlet brands, Nobu is also probably the most consistently excellent—I've eaten these dishes around the world and have always been wowed. But breaking the mold, Chef Matsuhisa also includes local influences, and has his own Pacific Rim inspired take on the region's most famous dessert, Basque Cheesecake. One special offer is an omakase menu inspired by local ingredients. At the hotel's stellar breakfast, they serve an elevated and exceptional take on Spain's most famous way to start the day, pan con tomate with jamon Iberico.
An amazing dinner at the Nobu San Sebastian. Nobu Hotels
I love the city and this was my third trip to San Sebastian, but my first stay at the recently opened hotel. It is just the perfect choice, even if you don't have dinner here, which would be a shame, but is understandable given all the other choices. But do not skip breakfast—even the coffee is amazing.
Perhaps the biggest selling point is location. The beating heart of San Sebastian is the Old Town, where the pintxo bars and many of the Michelin-starred eateries are. This sits at one end of a fabulous crescent shaped beach, La Concha, that is typically rated the best in Spain and one of the best in Europe. In fact, TripAdvisor users just ranked it the third best beach in the world for 2024. It is the city's scenic signature, and bordered by a long pedestrian promenade on which locals and tourists walk, run, bike, walk dogs, eat ice cream cones and generally live the good life morning to night, the soul of the city. The Nobu Hotel is smack in the middle of this, in an ultra-prime location directly across from and overlooking the beach and bay, with every single room looking out onto the sand and water, many of them with large outdoor terraces. If you like stunning views from your hotel room, you will love this.
The most famous dessert in San Sebastian, Basque "Burnt" cheesecake, getty
The main restaurant also has a large outdoor terrace, and with San Sebastian's pleasant weather, you might be inclined to eat every breakfast, dinner, and signatures like a sake tasting, outside. It's a very short and easy walk into the heart of Old Town, which you can see from every window. While the hotel itself is small, a boutique property renovated from a 110-year-old villa with just 20 rooms, it has two full bars and restaurants, all the outdoor spaces, and a small but well-equipped fitness center (mostly TechnoGym equipment), something few hotels in the space challenged and high-priced real estate district of Old Town even offer. It is also very dog friendly, and San Sebastian is an extremely dog friendly town, including its restaurants and the beach. There's even a rooftop infinity pool on the seventh floor with glass wall looking right at the beach, something no other hotel in the city offers. Instead of jamming in a small spa, as I have seen many hotels this size do, they have partnered with the city's premier standalone facility, the extensive and extremely well-equipped La Perla Thalassotherapy Center, which sits on the beach promenade just outside.
If you go to San Sebastian and choose the Nobu Hotel, you get the expected luxury trappings, very well-appointed and nicely decorated rooms, and amazing food, in addition to the great location. But as the smallest of the roughly three-dozen Nobu hotels in the world, you also get an intimate sense of coming home every time you return, and friendly, highly personalized service. For example, there was a family of five who wanted yoga classes, so they gave them a suite with an unusually large terrace and brought in an instructor and set up half a dozen mats on the terrace, showcasing the incredible view. Rooms are constantly reconfigured and furniture moved to do tastings, private dinners and all sorts of small special events. Since the hotel's audience is predominantly Americans, they have added carefully thought-out experiential activities for visitors from our country, gastronomic and otherwise.
Fashion lovers can enjoy a private tour of the Balenciaga Museum with Nobu Hotel San Sebastian. IDOIA UNZURRUNZAGA LLACH, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CRISTÓBAL BALENCIAGA MUSEOA,
Let's start with pintxos. The city is so famous for its pintxo bars that they have become something of a victim of their own success, and many spots are mediocre, touristic and have let quality lapse because they are going to sell large volumes to uninformed strollers regardless. So, it's now a place where you can have an unbelievable, elevated, superlative small bite experience or a mundane one. If you do not live there, the only way to get the former easily is with a guide, and I always recommend visitors take a guided pintxos tour, cherry picking the best offerings from the best spots for a true crème de la crème of tapas. But these days, everyone with a website is a 'guide,' and there are dozens of unvetted operators offering indistinguishable tours online. That's why the Nobu Hotel has curated its own, and it is a failsafe way to get the best of this uniquely San Sebastian dining experience. Don't miss it.
Even more exclusive is their dining society package. San Sebastian is famous for its private culinary clubs, essentially commercial kitchens with members. Especially in the Old Town, apartments are small, but everyone here is obsessed with food. So, they have these clubs where members can go cook and entertain big dinners for large groups of friends in a space perfect for that. It's a really cool experience but one very few visitors can enjoy, because these societies are exclusive private clubs and you can't get into one unless you know a member—or stay at the Nobu Hotel.
If you visit Basque Country, don't miss the local steak, some of the best beef on earth. getty
Catering to wine lovers, they have guided, chauffeured half and full day vineyard tours. The signature local wine of the Basque region is a lightly sparkling white called txakoli, light and perfect with the local seafood, and you visit several nearby vineyards in half a day. But it is just an hour to Spain's most famous wine region, Rioja, and they offer that as well. For art lovers they have a day tour that visits important local galleries and museums, culminating with the main event, a private tour of the Guggenheim in nearby Bilbao. They also have tours for fashion lovers, the main event being a VIP tour of the nearby Balenciaga Museum, as the famed 'Parisian' designer was from Getaria, a fishing village 10-minutes away famous for its seafood restaurants. Most recently, they have seen a spike of interest in genealogy travel, with tourists from Mexico and South America retracing their roots in this region and can assist with that. I recently did a feature here at Forbes on the similar rise of genealogy tourism by Irish Americans to Dublin, which you can read here.
If you love food and love travel, San Sebastian is one of the best places you can go. If you stay at the Nobu Hotel, a perfect hotel for foodies it's like a cherry on top of a delicious sundae.