Just back from: Marbella

Marbella is a place I've been returning to for nearly 20 years. Staying with dear friends who have a home there has made it feel especially familiar, and this most recent visit offered the perfect opportunity to revisit places I love and explore what's new.

While Marbella is well known for its beach clubs, late nights, Puerto Banús, and a particular strain of Mediterranean glamour, it has become a more international, increasingly year-round destination, with a broader dining scene and meaningful new investment across the east side of town—Los Monteros, Las Chapas, El Rosario, and Elviria, collectively known as Marbella East. The shift is also visible in a spurt of design-led, branded residential projects, with names including Karl Lagerfeld, Bentley Home, Fendi Casa, Dolce & Gabbana, and, most recently, Armani/Casa reshaping the high-end property landscape.

The long-awaited Four Seasons resort and residences in Río Real remains a long-term project, but it is a clear marker of where the market is heading: a more global, design-conscious, full-service resort lifestyle. At the same time, Marbella's essential contrasts remain intact—the enduring glamour of the Golden Mile, the historic charm of the Old Town, and the social energy of Puerto Banús.

For me, nothing says summer quite like a long, lazy lunch at one of Europe's many beach-club restaurants. Given the number of recent openings in Marbella, I felt obliged to check out a few. I know, it's a rough job, but someone has to do it.

Sabine Beach, at Playa Real Zaragoza in Marbella East, has a more understated, elegant coastal feel than many of the high-volume beach clubs. There are beach beds, a refined but relaxed atmosphere, and exactly the right kind of long-lunch energy. Go here for a beautiful, grown-up beach day where the sea, the lunch, and the overall rhythm matter more than a DJ-led spectacle.

Nosso, on Las Chapas Beach, is another strong choice in the newer eastward landscape. It has a cool, current vibe with sunbeds directly on the sand, good music, and a stylish crowd that isn't trying too hard. It is a touch buzzier than Sabine, while keeping that easy, toes-in-the-sand feel.

La Plage Casanis, in Elviria, was a great surprise. It has a rustic Mediterranean quality and a good balance between food, music, and atmosphere—and the food, which can be an afterthought at many of these places, was fantastic. Order the paella; it is a standout.

Le Cabane by Dolce & Gabbana was, for me, a miss. While it is visually beautiful, it felt overly expensive, produced, and a little strange in its energy. More importantly, it is a pool-led experience rather than a true beach day. Admittedly, the setting is beautiful and the food was quite good.

And then there's MC Beach at the iconic Marbella Club—still, hands down, my favorite after all these years. Delicious food, gracious service, a familiar but always lovely crowd, and that hard-to-create balance of old-school glamour and genuine ease.

Marbella's restaurant scene is extensive enough that you could spend weeks there and still have a dizzying number of choices. The Old Town is best for intimate, more traditional dinners; Nueva Andalucía and Puerto Banús lean more international and social. The Old Town is by far my favorite part of Marbella: narrow streets, whitewashed facades, flower-filled balconies, small squares, and a wonderful evening strolling scene.

We started our evening with pre-dinner oysters—arguably among the best I have ever had—at De Juan Gastrobar. It has the feeling of a proper after-work local spot, exactly the kind of place that makes a destination feel lived-in rather than merely visited. We then walked to Jane, the signature restaurant at La Fonda Heritage Hotel, where Chef Jorge González Carmona (the Ritz Madrid, Joël Robuchon) creates sublime dishes in a genuinely magical garden.

For another truly special meal, Skina is a reservation to plan around. This intimate, two-Michelin-starred restaurant offers a modern Andalusian tasting menu with a serious wine program, beginning with small tastes in a succession of beautiful rooms before moving to the garden. In Nueva Andalucía, Brasserie Astoria is a polished, social change of pace, and Frou Frou, near Puerto Banús, is an easy, lively Mediterranean choice for dinner with friends.

Near the Golden Mile and close to both Puente Romano and Marbella Club, Forum Marbella is less a conventional restaurant complex than a contemporary social hub, bringing food, wellness, culture, retail, and community together throughout the day. It is worth a stop between beach and dinner—polished but useful, social but not necessarily loud, designed for a day that begins with coffee and might end with a late dinner.

What this trip reminded me is that Marbella is at its best when you understand its contrasts: the Old Town and the newer development to the east, beach-club lunches and quiet morning strolls, the established ease of Marbella Club and the fresh energy around Forum and Marbella East. There's more change than I can remember in nearly two decades of visiting, yet the essential draw has stayed the same.

Marbella is a place to be outdoors, eat well, see friends, discover something new, and return to the places that have earned a place in your own personal map.