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Torel Avantgarde
Porto, Portugal · Torel · Accessible Luxury
Every room here is somebody: Frida Kahlo, Nina Simone, Zaha Hadid, Fernando Pessoa, Galileo, each one decorated to the measure of its namesake. The house dates from the 1940s, the Estado Novo years, and four Porto artists, Jorge Curval, Frederico Draw, Daniel Eime and Paulo Neves, made the work that runs from the front door through the bar. The restaurant is called Digby, after the Englishman credited with inventing the dark glass wine bottle, which is a fair joke in a port city. Terraces and pool face the Douro and Gaia.
- 59 rooms
- Opened 2017
- Neighborhood: Miragaia
- Architect: NN Arquitetura
- Interiors: Isabel Sá Nogueira (public spaces); Nano Design (guest rooms)
About Torel Avantgarde
- The restaurant honours Sir Kenelm Digby, the seventeenth-century English courtier credited with the strong dark glass wine bottle, the thing that made shipping and ageing port possible in the first place.
- Room names range far past painters: Nikola Tesla, Ferdinand Porsche, Coco Chanel, Astor Piazzolla, Simone de Beauvoir, Peggy Guggenheim and Oskar Barnack all have one.
- Interior designer Isabel Sá Nogueira built the whole scheme from Portuguese materials and makers, down to cork wall panels from the country that exports more cork than any other.
- It is the art house of the Torel group in Porto. The sister Torel Palace, across town, gives its rooms to Portuguese writers instead, and Torel Saboaria names its rooms after soap.
History
Torel Avantgarde occupies a building raised in the 1940s, during the Estado Novo, on Rua da Restauração above the Douro. The Torel group opened it as a five-star art hotel in 2017 and named it for the avant-garde: the argument of the house is that art is not decoration added at the end but the reason the place exists. Four Porto artists, Jorge Curval, Frederico Draw, Daniel Eime and Paulo Neves, made work for the reception, the bar, the restaurant, the spa and the stairwells, and the hotel also mounts exhibitions of Portuguese artists.
Every room and suite is dedicated to an avant-garde figure and decorated to fit: Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Coco Chanel, Alfred Hitchcock, Simone de Beauvoir, Nina Simone, Janis Joplin, Zaha Hadid, Le Corbusier, Charles and Ray Eames, Nikola Tesla, Ferdinand Porsche, Galileo Galilei, and Portuguese names including Fernando Pessoa, Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, Aurélia de Sousa, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. The Charlie Chaplin room has a lampshade built from bowler hats. Interiors are by Isabel Sá Nogueira, who worked on several Torel houses, and the architecture is by NN Arquitetura. The restaurant, Digby, is named for Sir Kenelm Digby, the English courtier credited with the strong dark glass wine bottle. The hotel has been enlarged and refurbished since opening, adding a spa, a cocktail bar and a second pool.
The setting
Rua da Restauração runs along the high ground of Miragaia, between the Palácio de Cristal gardens and the old centre, with the Douro below and Vila Nova de Gaia's port lodges on the far bank. It is a quieter address than the Ribeira but still a walk from the Clérigos tower, Livraria Lello and the Jardim da Cordoaria, and the gallery street of Rua Miguel Bombarda is close by. The Torel group's own Private Collection hotel stands a few doors down the same street at number 292.
Restaurants and bars
- Digby — Restaurant · Portuguese
Experiences
- Spa — A serene spa experience designed to restore balance and elevate the senses.
Amenities
- Free Wi-fi
- Balconies with views
- 24 Hours Check-in
Awards
- MICHELIN One Key (2026)
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