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PortoBay Flores
Porto, Portugal · PortoBay · Core Luxury
The fidalgo Martim Ferraz put this house up in the sixteenth century on ground that had been the bishop of Porto's vegetable garden, and it stayed with the Ferraz family until a merchant bought it in the nineteenth. PortoBay opened it as a hotel in September 2019, with 11 rooms inside the old palace and 55 in a new wing behind, the two separated by a planted courtyard. An eighteenth-century chapel survives, along with the granite stair and the coats of arms cut into the stonework out front.
- 66 rooms
- Opened 2019
- Neighborhood: Baixa
- Rooms from 226 sq ft (21 m²)
About PortoBay Flores
- Rua das Flores was laid out from about 1518 through the bishop of Porto's flower and vegetable gardens, which is where the street got its name.
- In the nineteenth century it was known as the street of gold: the jewellers took the sunny side and the textile merchants the shaded side, because linen was damaged by direct sun.
- The old house is known as the Casa dos Maias or Palácio dos Ferrazes, after the Ferrazes Bravo family who held it until Domingos de Oliveira Maia bought it in the nineteenth century.
- An eighteenth-century chapel is still inside the hotel, along with a reading room and an indoor pool lit by daylight.
- Entry-level rooms start at 226 sq ft (21 m²).
History
PortoBay Flores occupies a house built in the sixteenth century at what is now Rua das Flores 27 by the fidalgo Martim Ferraz, on land that until then had been the vegetable and flower gardens of the bishop of Porto. It is known as the Casa dos Maias, or the Palácio dos Ferrazes: the Ferrazes Bravo, the result of a marriage between the Ferraz family and the nobleman Manuel Bravo, owned it until the nineteenth century, when it passed to Domingos de Oliveira Maia. The street front still carries the tall timber doors, the triangular pediments over the windows, the wrought-iron balconies and the sixteenth-century coats of arms set into the granite.
PortoBay, the Madeira-based group, bought the property and opened the hotel on 6 September 2019, the year after it acquired the nearby Hotel Teatro. The scheme keeps 11 rooms inside the old palace and puts the other 55 in a wing built from scratch behind it, with a planted courtyard between the two and river views from the upper floors of the new building. An eighteenth-century chapel, the granite floors and the main staircase survive, and the hotel adds a restaurant, a bar opening onto Rua das Flores, a spa, a gym, a reading room, a meeting room and a small indoor pool lit by natural light.
The setting
Rua das Flores was opened from around 1518 as Rua de Santa Catarina das Flores, cut through the gardens of Bishop D. Pedro da Costa as part of a deliberate sixteenth-century plan to link the riverside city to the higher ground. It became the address of the city's nobility, of the clergy of the Order of St Michael the Archangel, and later of merchants and goldsmiths, so much so that the nineteenth century called it the street of gold, with jewellers on the sunlit side and linen sellers on the shaded side where the cloth would not fade. It is pedestrian now. The Misericórdia church stands next door, São Bento station is at the top of the street, the Largo de São Domingos is about 120 metres away, and the Ribeira is a five-minute walk downhill.
Restaurants and bars
- Bistrô Flores — Restaurant
Awards
- MICHELIN One Key (2026)
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