Pedro Subijana has cooked at Akelaŕe for more than four decades, and the restaurant holds Three MICHELIN Stars. The hotel around it, Akelarre, has 22 rooms just west of Monte Igueldo and holds Two MICHELIN Keys, the top tier among the eight Key hotels of San Sebastián, Bilbao and Rioja wine country for 2026. The other seven hold One Key. Palacio de los Ángeles in Haro is the one new name, and one of 16 new One-Key hotels in Spain for 2026. The tiers come from MICHELIN’s 2026 list for Spain, published in Spanish on 18 September. San Sebastián has four of the eight, Bilbao one, and the Rioja vineyards three, at Elciego, Briones and Haro. Together they have 504 rooms by our count.
Eight hotels, one at Two Keys: the San Sebastián, Bilbao and Rioja list
Names and towns are as MICHELIN’s Spanish list prints them, and room counts come from the header of each hotel’s MICHELIN page.
| Keys | Hotel | Town | Rooms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two | Akelarre | San Sebastián | 22 |
| One | The Artist Grand Hotel of Art | Bilbao | 145 |
| One | Hotel Santa María Briones | Briones | 16 |
| One | Lasala Plaza Hotel | Donostia / San Sebastián | 61 |
| One | Hotel Maria Cristina | Donostia / San Sebastián | 136 |
| One | Hotel Villa Favorita – Adults Only | Donostia / San Sebastián | 25 |
| One | Hotel Marques de Riscal, a Luxury Collection Hotel | Elciego | 61 |
| One | Palacio de Los Angeles (new) | Haro | 38 |
The Artist is the largest, with 145 rooms, and Santa María Briones the smallest, with 16. Six of the eight have 61 rooms or fewer. San Sebastián’s four share 244.
San Sebastián: Akelarre west of Monte Igueldo, and three Keys in town
“Just west of Monte Igueldo is where you’ll find Akelarre”, MICHELIN writes, in a modern building that looks out over the Basque coast. The guide adds that “a luxury boutique hotel devoted to a single chef is still something of a novelty here”. Rooms start at about 50 square metres, and suites reach 100. “Most rooms have massive soaking tubs placed before vast exterior windows, and the suites up the ante with plunge pools”. The spa is built in heavy stone, which MICHELIN compares with Peter Zumthor’s Therme Vals. Akelarre has held Two Keys since MICHELIN’s first Spanish Keys in 2024, and the 2026 list names it first among the Spanish hotels where the restaurant shares top billing. Its MICHELIN page puts it plainly: “It’s not just worth a visit, it’s worth planning a pilgrimage for”.
In town, MICHELIN writes that “San Sebastian’s most luxurious hotel is the Hotel Maria Cristina”, a Belle Époque mansion by the river, “lovingly maintained and painstakingly restored”. It has 136 rooms. MICHELIN notes that “many original architectural details are still in place, including stately marble columns and ornate chandeliers in the public spaces”. The rooms have “marble bathrooms, terraces, and windows overlooking the river or distant views of the sea”. Its restaurant, Amelia by Paulo Airaudo, holds Two MICHELIN Stars in the current guide.
Lasala Plaza Hotel occupies a 1917 building above the fishing port. “Behind its meticulously restored period façade, the Lasala Plaza Hotel is a luxury boutique hotel”, MICHELIN writes, with 61 rooms and “a restaurant serving Basque cuisine”. A few rooms are small. Upgrade to a Sea View or a Historical room, and “you’ll quickly find yourself with space and comfort to spare”. On La Concha, Hotel Villa Favorita is “a beautifully preserved 19th-century villa, the last of its kind on La Concha Beach in San Sebastian, Spain”. Its 25 rooms have “judicious accents in Atlantic blues against a restrained palette of neutrals”, and “Some rooms look out over the city, while others face directly out to sea, with full-length windows and, in some cases, terraces”. For a pool in San Sebastián, Akelarre’s suites have their own.
Bilbao: The Artist Grand Hotel of Art, across from the Guggenheim
“The Artist Grand Hotel of Art is just across from Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum”, MICHELIN writes, and “some of the excitement and energy from Frank Gehry’s design seems to have spilled over into this hotel”. It received its first Key in 2025 and is Bilbao’s only Key hotel. Rooms that do not face the interior look across to the museum. Javier Mariscal and Fernando Salas designed it. “The interior looks like, and quite literally is, a museum of 20th century furniture design, containing representative pieces from a variety of eras and schools”. A reading corner inspired by 1930s New York has “Art Deco design details and monthly live jazz nights”, and the hotel has the “restaurant OLIO, which fuses Basque and French cuisines”, plus a wellbeing area with massage rooms, a sauna and a Turkish bath.
Rioja wine country: Gehry’s titanium at Elciego, Briones and a new Key in Haro
In Rioja Alavesa, MICHELIN’s Spanish list calls Hotel Marqués de Riscal one of the most recognisable images of signature architecture in Spain, with Frank Gehry’s titanium ribbons seeming to ripple over the vineyards. The hotel page describes “this titanium-clad mother ship, standing alongside the original 19th-century winery buildings”. Of the 61 rooms, those in the main building follow its contours, “with huge windows canted outward, looking out through a web of steel supports and titanium ribbons”. “Rooms in the outbuilding, by contrast, are more traditional in plan, but their windows frame a front-row view of the gleaming Gehry building”. There is a Caudalie vinotherapy spa with an indoor pool, a fitness centre, a café and a wine bar. The restaurant, Marqués de Riscal, is in MICHELIN’s selection.
Hotel Santa María Briones sits “within the stone walls of a 16th-century manor house”. “Its small size and its village setting make for a distinctly tranquil escape”, MICHELIN writes, and the rooms “can be opened to the sunlight and to views of the river, the vineyards, or the village”. Allegar, the restaurant and wine bar with the chef Juan Cuesta, is in MICHELIN’s selection. “The hotel’s cellar, naturally, is full of bottles from local producers”, and a wine museum is within walking distance.
Haro has its first Key hotel. Palacio de los Ángeles is the conversion of “an 18th-century baroque palace into a collection of stylish and contemporary rooms and apartment-style residences”, 38 in all, with a relaxed restaurant, a wine bar and “a small space dedicated to a gym, spa area, and beauty treatments”. The outdoor pool is seasonal.
Stars and winter dates: Akelaŕe, Amelia, Santo Tomás and the Tamborrada
Two of the San Sebastián hotels house five MICHELIN Stars between them in the current guide, three at Akelaŕe and two at Amelia. MICHELIN presents its 2027 selection for Spain in Huesca on 1 December, and the Stars may change that evening. Winter has two fixed dates in San Sebastián. Every 21 December the Saint Thomas’s Day fair fills the Plaza de la Constitución, and the city’s tourist board lists “cheese, honey, txistorra sausage, cider and cakes”, adding that “the absolute star is the txistorra”. On 20 January, the patron saint’s day, the Tamborrada begins at midnight in the same square, and the drums carry on “throughout the following 24 hours”. Akelarre’s restaurant schedule on its hotel page covers March to December, so ask the hotel about January and February before booking.
The Luxury.it perspective
This corner of Spain is about the table, and MICHELIN’s own list says so when it names Akelarre among the hotels where the restaurant shares top billing. Two Frank Gehry buildings frame it: the Guggenheim across from The Artist in Bilbao, and the titanium winery hotel at Elciego. In between, the hotels are small. Six of the eight have 61 rooms or fewer. For a winter weekend, the txistorra of 21 December and the drums of 20 January give San Sebastián two dates to plan around, and Akelarre’s winter calendar is the first call to make. Along the coast into France, Biarritz and the French Basque hotels are in our Bordeaux to Biarritz guide.
Related guides
Michelin Keys 2026 in Madrid · Michelin Keys 2026 in Barcelona · Michelin Keys 2026 in Andalusia · Michelin Keys 2026 in the Canary Islands
