The best hotels in San Sebastián
Spanish queen María Cristina knew a good thing when she saw it. At the turn of the 20th century, she made the small city of San Sebastián her summer home, commissioning a seaside palace that singlehandedly launched the city’s reputation as a coastal holiday escape with luxe leanings. Today, the best hotels in San Sebastián offer almost as chic places to rest your head. The Grand Hotel Maria Cristina, a timeless classic and still one of Spain's most iconic stays, stands as a monument to the city’s history as a playground for the Spanish bourgeoisie.
After sociopolitical turmoil ushered in a dry spell for most of the 20th century, the city is officially back in its Gilded Age. Hotel construction has been in veritable gold rush mode over the last decade, resulting in a glut of fine hotels, from the newest Nobu to the high-design Akelarre, the starred addition to Pedro Subijana’s renowned restaurant. It’s official: the Belle Époque spirit is alive and well on the Bay of Biscay, and here’s a list of our favourite spots to sleep off the txakoli. Consider these the best hotels in San Sebastián.
How we choose the best hotels in San Sebastián
Every hotel on this list has been selected independently by our editors and written by a Condé Nast Traveller journalist who knows the destination and has stayed at that property. When choosing hotels, our editors consider both luxury properties and boutique and lesser-known boltholes that offer an authentic and insider experience of a destination. We’re always looking for beautiful design, a great location and warm service – as well as serious sustainability credentials. We update this list regularly as new hotels open and existing ones evolve. Find out more about our editorial standards and how we review hotels.
The best hotels in San Sebastián at a glance
- Best for luxury: Nobu Hotel
- Best for history: Hotel Maria Cristina, a Luxury Collection Hotel
- Best for location: Lasala Plaza
- Best for families: Hotel Luze
Courtesy AkelarrehotelAkelarre
$$$Featured in our Gold List of the best hotels in the world 2026
Igeldo, the out-of-town settlement somewhere between suburb and bucolic hilltop village, is best known in San Sebastián for three very different things: its funicular railway, the baby peas grown on its allotments, and Pedro Subijana's Akelarre restaurant, one of a trio of storied establishments in the city boasting three Michelin stars. For years Subijana had dreamed of building a small hotel as an adjunct to his restaurant and had been snapping up adjacent plots of land for the purpose (on one of which stood an abandoned discoteca). The result, unveiled in 2017, is a cut above the average restaurant with rooms. Attached to the existing building is the modernist structure of the hotel (designed by Marta Urtasun and Pedro Rica of Madrid-based architects Mecanismo) whose low-slung cuboid forms are faced with rough grey slate. Akelarre's 22 rooms have the studiedly neutral aesthetic of the boutique retreat de nos jours, with oak-lined walls and floor, cool modern furniture (check the butterscotch-coloured leather armchairs), total soundproofing, and plate-glass windows giving onto wide-screen views of sea, sky and verdant farmland. The effect is so restful it's easy to forget you're just a 10-minute drive from the bustle of downtown San Sebastián.
Address: Padre Orkolaga Ibilbidea, 56, 20008 Donostia, Gipuzkoa
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hotelHotel Luze
Location, location, location, has rarely felt so literal as at Hotel Luze’s new Belle Epoque revival retreat perched high above San Sebastián on Mount Igeldo. With views stretching across the horizon of the Cantabrian Sea, this new opening from the Spanish boutique group benefits from one of the most enviable locations in town. Its 42 rooms embrace unapologetic theatricality: think cornflower blue damask everything, ornate ceiling mouldings, and, in the more spacious rooms, a claw-foot tub angled strategically toward the floor-to-ceiling view of the sea. Culinary duties from croissants to dinner are overseen by local legend Iñigo Lavado, who couldn’t resist the siren call of this spectacular setting and moved his Michelin-starred restaurant here from nearby Irún. Outside, curlicue plasterwork and stucco ornamentation evoke the air of a private country chateau, with manicured gardens (complete with a budding hedge maze) and a fronton court for playing traditional Basque pelota. With its outdoor (in-season) and indoor pool area that includes saunas and a gym, Hotel Luze might have you wondering if you really need to get down to the centre at all.
Address: Gudamendi Bidea, 21, 20008 Donostia, Gipuzkoa, Spain
Arima Hotel
The first sign that Arima Hotel is something special is its breathtaking façade – aluminium slats shift with the sun and bathe interiors in ever-changing golden light. This 69-room Passivhaus retreat is tucked back behind the city’s technology park but shakes off any business‑park banality with chic Scandi décor and a calming indie soundtrack that plays throughout the property. The pervading sense of calm deepens at Foresta, the hotel’s spa complex and the world’s first Passivhaus‑certified wellness centre. The hydrotherapy pools, infrared saunas, ice plunge, and gigantic gym space are some of the city’s best facilities. Rooms are equally zen-inducing, with white walls, light oak accents and state-of-the-art automated blinds, lights, and a mechanical ventilation system with continuous heat recovery. In the bathrooms, rainwater‑filtered toilets, sulphate‑free toiletries, and a drawer that doubles as a four‑compartment recycling bin are reminders that sustainability needn’t come at the expense of comfort. The eco-conscious ethos carries down to the restaurant Misura, which serves a farm‑to‑table Basque menu: wild‑mushroom risotto, local grilled fish and seasonal vegetables. Don’t miss the rooftop pool and bar in summer, where local txakoli and pastel‑tinted sunsets make the journey from boardroom to beach feel blissfully seamless.
JAVIER BRAVOhotelNobu San Sebastian
Villa Eder has waited over a century for a tenant this glamorous. Built in 1912, in the middle of the Miraconcha promenade, this Belle Époque mansion now hosts the world's most recognisable sushi and hotel brand, Nobu. Interior designer Tomás Alía has orchestrated the transformation with characteristic restraint, infusing dark-stained Basque oak with ryokan-inspired calm. The contrast is unlike any other hotel in the city; beneath soaring period ceilings, low platform beds float like tatami mats, while bespoke furniture nods to local craft traditions. All 17 gilt-edged guest rooms share the same mesmerising vista – a famous postcard snap of Santa Clara Island surrounded by the blue Cantabrian Sea. Matsuhisa's greatest hits unfold in the Nobu restaurant: legendary black cod with miso, buttery toro tartare bejewelled with caviar. But it's the upstairs bar where you’ll find yourself drawn over and over again, watching the sun set over the wave-washed playa, expertly precise cocktail in hand, from what may be the finest balcony in town.
Address: Mirakontxa Pasealekua, 32, 20007 Donostia, Gipuzkoa, Spain
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hotelMendi Argia
Once an unassuming villa off the beaten track at the base of Mount Ulia, Mendi Argia was left to ruin before Openhouse Studio carried out its thoughtful restoration into a boutique hotel. The original structure has been carefully preserved to respect its links to the landscape, complemented with interior design by Openhouse magazine co-founder Mari Luz Vidal and CiOestudio architect Sara Ojanguren. Oak, terracotta, black marble from the Gipuzkoan town of Markina and glass create an environment that easily welcomes the contemporary within the traditional structure. The hotel sees no need to compete with San Sebastian’s restaurant scene, instead partnering with local restaurants including Mirador de Ulía and Bodegón Senra, to offer a dinner service on request whereby a chef travels to the hotel expressly.
Address: Ulia Pasealekua, 184, 20013 Donostia, Gipuzkoa
Javier Tolosa EcheparehotelHotel Arbaso
San Sebastian’s Centro neighbourhood was always the city’s administrative and retail hub but never had a great appeal to visitors. Arbaso, the city’s coolest urban bolthole, has since changed all that. Stupendously sited in a 19th-century apartment block in caramel-coloured stone on a sedate square beside the neo-Gothic Cathedral, this easeful boutique stay is predicated on an idea of contemporary Basque-style fusing dark-hued minimalism with a respect for rural tradition. Natural materials (notably wood) are to the fore and there’s an elegant austerity in the interior design. Suites, so large they feel like apartments, have perfect views of the Cathedral from their grey-painted ornamental balconies. The hotel’s restaurant, Narru, lies at the centre of a growing restaurant ecosystem in Centro. Altogether Arbaso (‘ancestor’ in Basque) has raised the neighbourhood’s self-esteem considerably.
Address: Hondarribia Kalea, 24, 20005 Donostia, Gipuzkoa
hotelVilla Soro
In the old days, this former summer house on the outskirts of Gros, an architectural mashup of Surrey Tudor and bourgeois Basque, was a frowzy, fusty kind of place. Following its purchase and re-opening by the Soldevila family of Catalan hoteliers, the Villa (which dates from 1898) has a new lease of life, and the fin-de-siecle ambience is all part of its charm. The six-month overhaul, under the careful hand of interiorista Núria Ferrer, maintains such original elements as the carved wooden staircase, the creaky parquet flooring and the stained-glass roof of the central hall. These are complimented with smart new furnishings, judiciously chosen modern Basque art (look for the original works by Eduardo Chillida), and bathrooms that nail the crisp art-deco look in black, white and chrome. Bedecked in fine wallpapers and rich fabrics in stripes and tartans, this old lady now has quite a spring in her step.
Address: Ategorrieta Hiribidea, 61, 20013 Donostia, Gipuzkoa
hotelLasala Plaza
This address, in a grand 1917 building in the golden sandstone typical of San Sebastián, manages several clever tricks all at the same time. One side of the hotel abuts a quiet old-town square on the fringes of the Parte Vieja, while the other gives directly onto the old harbour with all its buzz and brouhaha. The Lasala Plaza has no pretensions to five-star fuss, yet its clean-lined modern rooms with a palette of greys and whites, solid wooden floors, top-level beds and bedlinens, Japanese WCs, and domotic lighting are airy and comfortable. Immersed as it is in the Parte Vieja's vast universe of pintxo bars, the hotel hardly needed its own-house restaurant. Even so, Ander González's La Jarana is making a name for itself with a disingenuously simple menu of retro dishes (steak tartar, fish soup, egg and chips with morcilla) impeccably done. Crowning the building is a rooftop terrace – a rare beast in San Sebastián – with a swimming pool and bar. As the venue for a glass of cold txakoli while watching the sunset over Santa Clara island and the heights of Igeldo, nowhere in town comes close.
Address: Lasala Pl., 2, 20003 Donostia, Gipuzkoa
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hotelVilla Favorita
Villa Favorita is an offshoot of the been-there-for-ever Hotel Londres, but there's a charm and chic about this 23-room townhouse hotel, housed in one of the last remaining private mansions behind La Concha beach, that rather puts its forebear to shame. Rafael Sitges, the doyen of Spanish interioristas, is a past master at balancing bold glamour with exquisite taste: the sea-facing rooms with their high moulded ceilings, maritime-inflected brass fittings, studded headboards and mirrored bathrooms are beyond classy. Antique furniture makes a strong showing – an antique Dutch grandfather clock stands beside the reception desk, dutifully tolling the hours. Sitges' regular collaborator Paul Christopher McKenna is behind the gorgeous hand-painted lifts and the trompe l'oeil murals of tropical vegetation. Meanwhile, down in the basement, Argentine chef Paulo Airaudo ups the ante at the two-Michelin-starred Amelia. 'Favorita' may not have been the Villa's original name, but it's coming to seem deeply appropriate.
Address: Zubieta Kalea, 26, 20007 Donostia, Gipuzkoa
Price: Double rooms from around £400.jpg)
Pablo AxpehotelZinema7
'Un Hotel de Cine' is Zinema7's punning description of itself, and the phrase defines it perfectly. First off, the hotel occupies the site of a former cinema, the much-loved Astoria, in the un-touristy neighbourhood of Amara. Each of the breezily designed contemporary rooms is named after an actor or director, and photographs throughout the hotel are a roll-call of winners at the annual San Sebastián Film Festival. Theming of this kind in hotels can be annoying if it's not done with the coherence and humour on show here: the Zinema7 has a library of film books, a huge collection of DVDs for the use of guests, and do not disturb signs that read: 'Silence! we're rolling!'. Ceiling installations in the ground-floor Bistroteka Zinema7 restaurant are made of recycled film reels, while the portly gentleman to be seen permanently seated in the lobby is a sculpture of Alfred Hitchcock, who also lends his name to one of the suites. It's all great fun, and this is one of the few hotels in San Sebastián that the whole family can enjoy.
Address: Familia Santua Kalea, 1, 20010 Donostia, Gipuzkoa
hotelHotel Maria Cristina, a Luxury Collection Hotel
Like all great hotels the Maria Cristina, which opened in 1912, is even more than the sum of its considerable parts. San Sebastián’s most venerable and glamorous lodging has no sprawling gardens, no pool, no big-name spa or chef-driven restaurant. But its situation beside the river Urumea, with views of Rafael Moneo’s Kursaal building and the Cantabrian Sea beyond, is as nearly perfect as any hotel in Europe. If the building’s sandstone façade has a certain severity, the interior is voluptuously furnished in the eclectic style of modern luxury, with a soft-edged colour scheme in grey, mauve and turquoise. Named for Spain's regent queen, mother of King Alfonso XIII, the Maria Cristina has history and heritage in spades; anecdotes cling to it like sequins.(Here's just one: an outsize portrait of Bette Davis, who smoked her last cigarette here before being rushed to Paris and death, presides over the cocktail bar.) Worth singling out for praise is the hotel’s charming and discreetly omnipresent service, which creates something of the intimacy of a grand private household.
Address: República Argentina K., 4, 20004 Donostia, Gipuzkoa
Price: Double rooms from around £500
Iñaki Caperochipi PhotographyHotel de Londres y de Inglaterra
Run by the group Abba, this classic 19th-century building has plenty of stories to tell, having witnessed the San Sebastián of the Belle Époque and even hosting Mata Hari herself. Its privileged views of La Concha Beach are hard to resist, with an enviable location that's just a few steps from the promenade and the emblematic beach. For the best vantage point, make a reservation at the Bistro del Londres, which serves up traditional Basque dishes.
Address: Zubieta Kalea, 2, 20007 Donostia, Gipuzkoa, Spain
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