Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / Portugal / Porto / Pestana Porto, A Brasileira, City Center & Heritage Building
Pestana Porto, A Brasileira, City Center & Heritage Building
Porto, Portugal · Pestana · Accessible Luxury
A Brasileira opened on Rua Sá da Bandeira on 4 May 1903 and is credited with serving Portugal its first coffee by the cup. Pestana opened a hotel above it in 2018, on the cafe's 115th birthday, after a restoration that left the tiled facade, the iron and glass canopy and Januário Godinho's semicircular staircase exactly where they were. The 90 rooms climb six floors named for goods Portuguese ships once carried home: coffee, tea, cocoa, cinnamon, anise and pink pepper.
- 90 rooms
- Opened 2018
- Neighborhood: Baixa
- Rooms from 969 sq ft (90 m²)
- Architect: APEL Arquitectura (Ginestal Machado)
- Interiors: Jaime Morais
About Pestana Porto, A Brasileira, City Center & Heritage Building
- Francisco de Oliveira Ferreira designed the cafe in 1903 and Januário Godinho the ground-floor dining room in 1938. Both rooms came through the hotel conversion intact.
- The building belongs to António Oliveira, the former footballer who went on to manage Portugal's national team, and he put around 12 million euros into turning it into a hotel.
- APEL's architects, led by Ginestal Machado, set the new upper storeys back from the street so the original fourth-floor roofline still reads from the pavement.
- The cafe kept its own kitchen and still pours coffee alongside bacalhau à Brás, francesinha and its house bife à Brasileira.
- Entry-level rooms start at 969 sq ft (90 m²).
History
The building on the corner of Rua Sá da Bandeira and Rua do Bonjardim dates from the early nineteenth century, but its fame starts on 4 May 1903, when the cafe A Brasileira opened on the ground floor in rooms designed by the architect Francisco de Oliveira Ferreira. It is remembered as the house that introduced coffee served by the cup in Portugal, and for decades the cafe and its dining room drew the city's cultural and sporting crowd. In 1938 Januário Godinho redesigned the restaurant and added the semicircular staircase that still anchors the interior.
The building later passed to António Oliveira, the former footballer and Portugal national team manager, whose company OPPA partnered with the Pestana Hotel Group on a roughly 12 million euro conversion built by Mota-Engil. APEL's architecture team under Ginestal Machado kept the tiled facade, the iron and glass canopy over the entrance, the cafe, the restaurant and the service stair, and added new floors stepped back so the original facade line stays legible from the street. The hotel opened in 2018, timed to the cafe's 115th anniversary, with 90 rooms and suites on six floors named for coffee, tea, cocoa, cinnamon, anise and pink pepper, a gym and meeting rooms in the basement, and a French courtyard planted as a vertical garden. Interiors are by Jaime Morais; the signature restaurant opened under chef Rui Martins.
The setting
Rua Sá da Bandeira runs through Porto's Baixa, the working downtown rather than the postcard quay. The Teatro Sá da Bandeira is next door and São Bento station is a short walk downhill, its atrium lined with roughly twenty thousand azulejos painted by Jorge Colaço between 1905 and 1916. The Bolhão market, the shopping street of Santa Catarina with the 1921 Café Majestic on it, and the 1906 Lello bookshop are all within about ten minutes on foot, as is Avenida dos Aliados. Ribeira and the Douro are downhill from here, which in Porto means a steep return.
Open Pestana Porto, A Brasileira, City Center & Heritage Building in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.
More Pestana hotels
- Pestana Palácio do Freixo — Porto, Portugal · High Luxury
- Pestana Casino Park — Funchal, Portugal · Accessible Luxury
- Pestana Cidadela Cascais, Pousada & Art District — Cascais, Portugal · Accessible Luxury
- Pestana Douro Riverside, Preferred Hotels & Resorts, Lifestyle — Porto, Portugal · Accessible Luxury
- Pestana Palace Lisboa Hotel & National Monument — Lisbon, Portugal · Accessible Luxury
- Pestana Vintage Porto Hotel & World Heritage Site — Porto, Portugal · Accessible Luxury
More hotels in Porto
- Altis Porto Hotel, member of Preferred Hotels & Resorts - L.V.X. — Altis · Accessible Luxury
- Deuxmecs Porto — Independent · Accessible Luxury
- GA Palace Hotel — Independent · Accessible Luxury
- Infante Sagres — Independent · Accessible Luxury
- LENSCAPE Coterie — Independent · Accessible Luxury
- Origine Porto Gaia, A Tribute Portfolio Hotel — Tribute Portfolio · Accessible Luxury
Pestana in The Maison: the brand's idea, history and every house on the atlas.