delicious San Sebastián

If the town of San Sebastián sounds delicious, its because is literally is! With a total of 17 Michelin stars (the highest concentration in the world in relation to the number of inhabitants), San Sebastián has become an international gastronomic destination making the Akelarre Hotel a definitive port of call for gourmands and jetsetters alike.
Perched on the hillside of Monte Lgueldo near San Sebastián on the northern coast of Spain, Akelarre Hotel enjoys expansive views of the Bay of Biscay as well as the French-Basque coastline and the coastal cliffs of Vizcaya. While providing a vast and imposing natural landscape whose mesmeric beauty makes this location the perfect setting for this five-star, 22-room hotel and spa by Madrid-based architectural studio Mecanismo,  there is another reason that makes the hotel’s location quite exceptional: the 3-Michelin Star Akelarre Restaurant. Helmed since 1975 by chef and owner Pedro Subijana, one of the pioneers of Basque haute cuisine, the restaurant received its third star in 2007.
Taking advantage of its mountainous location, the hotel is built into the hillside below the restaurant, its octagonal dining room now crowning the staggered volumes underneath. This configuration not only lends the restaurant, both literally and figuratively, the position it deserves, but it also ensures that both the guest rooms and the communal areas face the sea. On the bottom, five stone-clad cubes house the guest rooms in two floors, each block carefully orientated in a different direction to ensure privacy, while on top, the architects have designed curvaceous terraces, which seem to have been sculpted out of the stone, connected to the hotel’s public areas through decked walkways.