Hotel description

If you haven’t been to Portugal in a while you might be surprised at the explosion of new contemporary design that’s taken place there. Suddenly this classic, conservative town is full of striking avant-garde architecture and interiors. And that goes for the hotels as well — among the best of the new breed is the Fontana Park Hotel, right off Saldanha Square, in a rapidly improving district in the city’s north.

It’s a historical building, with interiors remade in a minimalist, monochromatic style, by the leading Portuguese architect Francisco Aires Mateus and the interior designer Nini Andrade Silva. It’s crisp but not cold, sleek but not alienating, proof that in capable hands the classic design hotel concept still has some mileage left in it.

Bedrooms are more modern-chic than traditionally luxurious, though they do come with standards like flat-screen televisions and platform beds, and the large windows admit plenty of sunlight. With over a hundred rooms there’s space for plenty of paying guests, while the restaurants (the Portuguese-Mediterranean Saladanha Mar and the Japanese-themed Bonsai) make the Fontana Park’s inventive design available to short-term visitors as well. Not to be missed: the courtyard garden, a city-center shelter complete with bamboo trees and gurgling waterfall.