Surfer Ainara (@ainaraymat) lives in Zarautz, twenty minutes along the coast from San Sebastián. We followed her between the two, from the coffee bar she starts the day in to a pintxos counter where nobody sits down. These are the places she keeps going back to, and the ones most visitors walk straight past.
With Magic Capture on Google Pixel 11 Pro, she films the wave and pulls the stills out afterwards, so she can watch the water instead of the screen.
Watch Ainara’s guide to San Sebastián on Instagram.

San Sebastián and Zarautz Guide

Surfer Ainara (@ainaraymat) lives in Zarautz, twenty minutes along the coast from San Sebastián. We followed her between the two, from the coffee bar she starts the day in to a pintxos counter where nobody sits down. These are the places she keeps going back to, and the ones most visitors walk straight past.

With Magic Capture on Google Pixel 11 Pro, she films the wave and pulls the stills out afterwards, so she can watch the water instead of the screen.

Watch Ainara’s guide to San Sebastián on Instagram here.

You can’t come to San Sebastián and skip pintxos. The counter is covered in small plates, and you eat them standing up, the way they’re meant to be eaten. Point at what you want, keep track of what you’ve had, and pay at the end.

Bar Aralar

Ainara’s first stop of the day. The coffee is good, and the plant-based menu is the reason she keeps coming back. Order a pastry with it and take a seat. The tiled floor is worth looking at while you wait.

Drink

Syra Coffee

Pukas started in the Basque Country in the 1970s and grew into one of Europe’s biggest surfboard makers. The shop is racks of boards in every colour. Even if you don’t surf, go for the fins, the finishes and the colours.

Shop

Pukas Surf Shop

Nearly three kilometres of sand, and the reason Ainara lives here. It’s one of the most reliable surf spots in Spain, with waves for beginners at one end and locals at the other. Find a bench on the front, watch for a while, and then decide whether to get in.

Explore

Zarautz Beach

An old tobacco factory, now an international centre for contemporary culture. The building is the draw: long corridors, industrial bones, and exhibitions, cinema and talks inside. Walk the corridors first and work out what’s on after.

Tabakalera

Every Basque town has a pelota court, and most have someone playing on it. It’s one of the fastest ball games there is, played against a single high wall. Stand at the edge and watch the ball. If there’s a game on, you won’t need anyone to explain the rules.

Frontoi Txiki

New in

The English pub garden is a specific kind of pleasure - part institution, part accident. Nobody designed most of them; they simply accumulated, a few benches at a time, until they became the reason you went. The 10 here are the ones the Glassette team keep going back to: a three-storey treehouse in north London, a stone terrace above the Channel where the beer arrives through a hatch, a Dales garden lit by gaslight, a lawn with a Victorian viaduct for a backdrop. Some do serious food, some do pasties and nothing else. All of them reward staying longer than you meant to.

Our Favourite Pub Gardens

The Glassette Team's Favourite Pub Gardens

A bouquet doesn't have to mean a dozen roses. At Glassette, we believe the best arrangements say something about the person carrying them - or wearing them. From blooms that never wilt to broccoli dressed in pearls, the bouquet is having a playful moment. Whether you're gathering flowers for a friend, a table, or an aisle, here are six creative ideas for bouquets.

Creative Ideas For Bouquets

There is a slowness to embroidery that survives the finished object. Every stitch is a decision made by hand, and it shows - in the slight irregularity of a line, the density of a filled motif, the sense that someone sat with this for hours. The five brands in this edit approach the craft differently: some draw on folk traditions passed down through generations, others treat the needle like a pencil. What they share is a refusal to hurry. These are the brands to follow if you love embroidery.

5 Embroidery Brands To Follow

The best campsites tend to be the ones that don't try too hard. A field with a view, a farm shop that sells eggs, a walk to the beach that takes less than ten minutes. The 10 on this list have been chosen for their settings - dunes on the west coast of Scotland, a valley below Kinder Scout, the most southerly point in Britain, and for having resisted the urge to become holiday parks. Book early where you can. The good ones know exactly what they have.

10 Best Campsites in the UK

Welcome to If I Had A Million, our new series where we ask people anonymously what they'd actually do if they won a million pounds. Not what you should do with a windfall like that, what you'd really do. Each month, one person tells us exactly how they'd split it, spend it, and share it. No names, no judgement, just honesty.
First up: a 26-year-old trainee joiner from Bath, currently renting, who's already got it all mapped out, down to the industrial knitting machine.

If I had a million...

If I had a million

Good renovation advice is almost always retrospective. You have to make the mistakes first. Room by Room is a new series from Glassette where we ask designers and homeowners to walk us through a single space: what wasn't working, what they spent too much on (and whether it was worth it), and what they'd tell you before you pick up a sledgehammer.
In the heart of London sits a slice of Iran in restaurant form. Persian decor adorns the interior of Berenjak Mayfair, which opened its doors earlier this year. It's described as "busy, buzzy and intimate" by Jake Raslan and Lorenzo Buscaroli, the minds behind the interiors – and we're inclined to agree.
With an expansive budget, the pair were able to bring to life stunning details, from a hand-painted ceiling by a specialist decorative artist, inspired by historic Persian miniatures, to bespoke marble mosaic floors in the toilets and elegantly draped curtains. The devil is truly in the detail when it comes to the Mayfair dining spot.
An endeavour that took more than a year to complete, a great deal of time, sweat, bespoke tiles and love were clearly poured into the space. On the food front, guests are treated to an immersive experience, with a kitchen that spills into the dining space, allowing them to watch stone-baked bread and smoked meats being prepared in real time.
We caught up with the brains behind the project to uncover the most expensive details, why handmade craftsmanship really is worth the investment, and whether they have any regrets.

Room by Room with Atelier Wren

Room by Room

Our weekly Nice Things Edit is a curated Monday round-up of what we’re loving right now. From our favourite pieces on Glassette to a recipe, a watch, a read, a place to visit, a restaurant, and a gift worth bookmarking.
Each week, every member of the Glassette team shares their current favourites, whether that’s new arrivals, pieces we’ve spotted trending, or timeless finds we can’t stop thinking about. Think of it as a weekly dose of joy, discovery, and design inspiration, handpicked by the Glassette team.

Nice Things This Week

Tennis has never really needed much - a net, a rectangle, someone to hit with. Which makes it all the more striking when a court ends up somewhere extraordinary. The ones on this list weren't built for convenience: they're carved into cliffsides, tucked inside deconsecrated churches, and laid out on rooftops above the Paris skyline. A clay court suspended over the Tyrrhenian Sea. A converted chapel in Milan where the rallies happen beneath vaulted ceilings. A lone court in the Serengeti with an audience of giraffes. Whether you play or just appreciate a good view, these are eight courts worth crossing the world for.

8 Most Beautiful Tennis Courts

8 Of The Most Beautiful Tennis Courts In The World

The shell has spent decades being filed under "holiday souvenir" and not much else. That's over. Scalloped edges are turning up on lamps and mirror frames, mantelpieces are swapping their usual ceramics for conch and clam, and entire chandeliers are now being built from them - somewhere between a cabinet of curiosities and a beach house, minus the sand. It helps that the appeal was never really in question: no two shells the same, no improvement required. This isn't a coastal trend so much as good taste finally catching up with something the sea got right first.

Trending: Shell We?

Trending Now: Shell We?

Summer has a way of sending everyone in different directions. This year, the Glassette team is scattered across an alpine lake in Austria, an old town in the Algarve, a quiet corner of Devon, and the Italian Riviera. No grand theme, no single destination - just the places we've actually booked, the reasons we picked them, and a few recommendations worth saving for your own trip. Here's where we're going.

Glassette Team's Summer Holidays

Where the Glassette Team are Holidaying this Summer

Our Monthly What’s On is a curated round-up of the exhibitions, restaurant openings and residencies, and gigs we’re making plans for. From gallery shows and design fairs to new tables worth booking, cultural moments to catch, and the under-the-radar events you’ll wish you’d heard about sooner.
Think of it as your cultural compass for the month ahead: a considered edit of art, food, cinema and design, chosen to inspire weekends well spent.

What's On In July

Men's SS27 might be over, but it has undoubtedly left an impression. Rick Owens' inflatable garments with built-in air conditioning came in handy during the Paris heatwave. Meanwhile, over at Celine, a stacked front row, including Grace Jones and Mark Ronson, was treated to visors with chains, crystal-encrusted denim and shrunken peacoats. We're still thinking about how to borrow from the boys for next summer, but for now, these SS27-inspired interiors will do.

Men's SS27 shows as interiors

The tea party has never really gone anywhere. It just needed someone to set the table properly.
Spode has been making iconic British ceramics since 1770 - pieces that have outlasted trends, survived centuries, and somehow only look better with age. This isn't a heritage story, though. It's a now story. Bold colour, confident styling, real people around a real table. Three of Spode's most iconic ranges, shown the way a new generation would actually use them.
Because the most relevant thing a classic can do right now isn't chase what's new. It's own what's timeless, and invite everyone to sit down.

The Modern Tea Party

Art has a way of choosing its location well. The places on this list aren't cities that happen to have galleries - they're towns, islands, and desert outposts where the art and the landscape have become inseparable. A whitewashed fishing village that drew Dalí. A Japanese island that became a permanent installation. A valley in the Sonoran that made space for something stranger. Whether you're planning around them or letting them redirect a trip entirely, these are ten places worth knowing about.

10 Art Destinations To Save

10 Art Destinations To Save Around The World

July, you've been a lot - but in a good way. Busy doesn't quite cover it, but here's what's stuck with me this month.
A reading room stocked entirely with queer literature, tucked inside an Aesop store. A cabbage (yes, a cabbage) baked and frosted until it passes for a cake. A cosy, intimate dark in Fitzrovia that's somehow fully booked on a random Thursday.
But the one that's properly stayed with me, a shoe shop in Shoreditch, about to go under, saved overnight because the owner's daughter put it on TikTok and the whole neighbourhood turned up for it. Community, doing what it does best.
So that's my July edit, a bit of design, a bit of food, a bit of "support your local shop or lose it." Exactly as a July edit should be.

What Inspired Me This Month

Some houses take years to get right. Where We'd Stay is a new series from Glassette where we ask the people behind exceptional places to stay - hotels, villas, houses, the occasional very good Airbnb - to walk us through what they made and why.
We're starting in Suffolk, at Melton Hall: a Grade II listed Georgian house on the edge of Woodbridge, sleeping up to 17, with a pool that (according to everyone involved) stops people in their tracks. It was three years in the making - a collaboration between Cassandra Stavrou, founder of Proper Snacks, and her longtime friend and interior designer Rebecca Sicardi, who spent those years sourcing art and furniture from independent dealers, avoiding big brands entirely, and commissioning two oak tables from a single fallen tree on the grounds.
Each instalment covers one property, question by question - the design decisions, the nearby spots worth knowing about, and the one thing guests always comment on. Places we'd genuinely stay. Starting here.

Where We'd Stay

Where We'd Stay: Melton Hall

Eleanor is Glassette's Buying and Brand Acquisition Manager - the person who sources new homeware and lifestyle brands for the platform, shapes the ranges, and spots what's worth paying attention to before most people have clocked it. Every month, she shares the products she can't stop thinking about, the trends quietly moving into interiors, and honest recommendations she'd genuinely spend her own money on.

June Product Diaries

Product Diaries

“I've made so many friends all over the world and have had so many discussions with followers about books they've read and loved,” says Rachel Soo Thow, the visionary behind the online literary Instagram account, The Lit List, of the virtual community she’s cultivated. “On the other hand, I've also had conversations with readers about books they didn't love and why; and that's what I love about this community – discussion invites intrigue, and if I can create that, then my job is done.” The 187k people who follow Rachel (and counting) would undoubtedly agree.
What started as a page to document the books she loved, those she didn’t love quite so much, and why, has grown into a powerhouse. On the feed, you’ll find the New Zealand-based creative’s current reading list, accompanied by short blurbs about each novel, essays she’s reading to combat internet brain rot, her personal Substack essays, and much more.
Alongside this, Rachel has launched a subsidiary account, Litsy, where non-viral book recommendations – both old and new – can thrive. Her approach to reading is entirely mood-based, and she’ll often pick up a book and, “if it doesn't grab me, then I put it aside and move on to the next one”. Solid advice, to be honest.
Rachel is a woman who knows what she wants to read – so we caught up with her to find out which books will be occupying her summer, the head-scratchers that left her rethinking, well, everything, the essays she keeps returning to, and, most importantly, whether she’s a bookmark user or a page-folder.

Summer Reading List

Summer Reading List With Rachel Soo Thow

Glassette's first seasonal trend report is here. For summer 2026, we've been watching the things quietly gathering momentum across interiors, homeware and food that haven't made headlines yet, but will.

San Sebastián and Zarautz Guide

Bar Aralar

Syra Coffee

Pukas Surf Shop

Zarautz Beach

Tabakalera

Frontoi Txiki

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