David Cho's San Sebastián
How the Postcard founder and friend of The Angel aced the Basque Country
Today on The Angel, we have friend of the letter David Cho recounting his recent, deeply researched, and very well-executed trip to San Sebastián and its surrounding towns. Longtime readers will recall I covered San Sebastián a couple of years ago, so it felt right to bring in a trusted source (with excellent taste and a real sense of thoroughness) to check back in on one of the world's great food cities.
For those who don’t know him: David is a media veteran (The Awl, Wirecutter, Grantland, FiveThirtyEight) and creative director whose clients have included Nike, Apple, and Google. He’s also the founder of Postcard, a smarter map for deciding where to go and what to do. You can save places from anywhere, find exactly what you need, and share your lists, like David’s 13 Favorite Places in New York. You can download Postcard here.
Also, a quick travel update on my end before he gets into it: I was back in Paris last week, and have updated The Angel’s Paris guide accordingly. Now onto David.
I don’t want to undermine or disrespect The Angel, Emily Wilson, or any of her past contributors, but I am by no means a San Sebastián expert.
I’m just a person who went there a few weeks ago, who did a lot, a lot, a lot of research beforehand, and had a really nice few days in the Basque Country as a result.
The method was simple: I got a lot of lists from real experts and people who grew up there or currently live there, watched an absurd amount of reels and TikToks (once you watch one, they really hammer you with them), and opened approximately 38 tabs of editorial, Reddit, just everything, and then built out our agenda from there (below), which included one of my favorite meals/days of the year so far.
Think of this as a really nice way to spend a jam-packed four days in the area.
Some good general advice (some I received, some I learned):
Your bigger meals should be lunch, which should serve as anchors for day trips outside of San Sebastián to see all of the other towns in the area. The smaller, surrounding towns are full of interesting character, and the evenings in San Sebastián proper are beautiful and a great way to close your day.
I’m very averse to lines and chaos, and eating in San Sebastián can feel like a lot of lines and chaos. It took me a second, but once you lean in, you’ll realize that all of the lines go pretty quickly, that the madness is in fact pretty efficient, and it’s all very doable.
In terms of food, there are no real wrong answers in this region—besides filling up on bread (please don’t fill up on bread)—because everything is pretty great. I’m going to list a lot of dishes that we ordered (or were recommended to me) for each place, but you should get whatever speaks to you, because the floor is extremely high.
Day 1
Twist: We’re not even starting in San Sebastián, mainly because you can’t fly directly into the city, so you’re most likely landing in Bilbao. (Some people on the internet will try to tell you that flying into Santander is also an option, it’s not; it’s a three-hour, €300 car ride from San Sebastián.)
So, since you’re in Bilbao, it’s silly to not to take a 15-minute cab ride from the airport to the Guggenheim Museum. (There are barely any Ubers here, so plan to hit the taxi lines or have people at the hotel or restaurants order them for you.)
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
The massive Frank Gehry building gives you a cinematic “hello” as you drive up, which serves as a nice way to start your trip. They’ll also store your bags (if they’re carry-on size). Inside and out, there’s a lot of beautiful work that you should probably budget ~2-3 hours for.
There’s a huge—both in scale and quantity—collection of Richard Serras (great), a Louise Bourgeois spider (neutral), a big Jeff Koons dog made out of tulips (redacted), and a good mix of Spanish artists and greatest hits (there was a Jasper Johns exhibition when we were there) throughout the museum. All in all, it’s a great and chill place.
When you’re ready to leave, you’ll take another cab to the bus station. San Sebastián is a little over an hour away, and you can book (and modify) bus tickets via the website Omio.
As for where to stay in San Sebastián, I can’t give you any firsthand advice, because we booked our trip way too last-minute (and during peak season), so we had to settle, but these were the hotels most recommended:
Lasala Plaza – pool on the roof, great views throughout, and aspires to look like a boat (take from that what you will), all while being reasonably priced.
Hotel Maria Cristina – this is the “very nice” option; it’s on the water and designed by the same architect who did the Ritz Paris.
Hotel Arbaso – slightly outside of where you want to be, but seems like the most interesting of the three.
The one thing I would recommend is to stay in Old Town. It puts you within a 10-minute walk from most of the things you want to do, both in the day (beach, food) and at night (food, drink). And, as I mentioned before, getting a cab is annoying and slow.
Onto the food (and some beaches).
Note: dishes with double asterisks indicate my favorites.
