Porto, Portugal

Saboaria

Price per night from$885.07

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR860.15), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Saboaria Photos

Style

Scrubs up well

Setting

Porto passageway

Explore

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Saboaria is a squeaky-clean stay in central Porto, with scent-themed rooms to choose from, split-level suites and a street-level café for watching the world go by. The building was once a soap factory and it’s as fragrant as ever today. It may be in the middle of Porto, but that doesn’t mean there’s no space for a garden – this one has a pool and hot tub. Outside, the spiritual home of fortified wine is on your doorstep (handy for port-house proximity). 

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

Some port and local chocolate truffles, plus a 10 per cent discount on spa treatments

Facilities

Photos Saboaria facilities

Need to know

Rooms

28, including seven suites.

Check–Out

11am. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

More details

Breakfast à la carte is included with some packages, but otherwise available to buy.

Also

There’s a lift to all floors at Saboaria, plus an adapted room for wheelchair users.

At the hotel

Free WiFi throughout, garden. In rooms: kitchenette with an induction hob, oven, microwave, kettle and coffee machine; TV, air-conditioning and Castelbel bath products.

Our favourite rooms

If you’re not a fan of single-storey living, book one of the Deluxe Duplex rooms, which have a bedroom upstairs, a lounge downstairs and a white spiral staircase linking the two. From Room 26, you’ll be able to spy the top of Porto’s city hall.

Poolside

The pool in the garden is open year round (from 8am to 8pm) but heated from April to November, making its neighbouring Jacuzzi your toasty option during colder months.

Spa

The petite spa at Saboaria has double and single treatment rooms, a steam bath and a relaxation room for tea and naps.

Packing tips

Leave the rubber duckies behind.

Also

There are yoga mats in all of the rooms and a once-weekly class if you need a little more guidance for your practice.

Children

All ages are welcome and some of the rooms have sofa-beds for kids. Babysitting is available (from €25 an hour).

Sustainability efforts

All amenities are refillable, rather than single-use, and the hotel aims to be paperless. A ‘green rate’ is offered to guests willing to forego housekeeping and have a tree planted instead.

Food and Drink

Photos Saboaria food and drink

Top Table

Pick one of the street-facing tables by the window for peak people-watching potential in the restaurant.

Dress Code

Wash and go.

Hotel restaurant

Fresh juices, yogurt and granola, a selection of pastries, plus eggs cooked to order provide an enticingly varied breakfast spread each morning. A relaxed, deli-style restaurant is now open for lunch daily and some evenings, too: its menu of grazing plates is rooted in Portuguese cuisine but brings together unorthodox combinations such as Bisaro pork with pumpkin and coffee, or seaweed and salted cod atop pizzette. 

Hotel bar

There’s no separate bar but drinks (naturally, plenty of port and Douro Valley wines) are served in the restaurant.

Last orders

Breakfast is served from 7am until 10.30am; lunch runs from 12.30pm until 3.30pm, and Thursday to Sunday only, dinner is served from 7pm until 10.30pm.

Location

Photos Saboaria location
Address
Saboaria
Rua do Bonjardim 560
Porto
4000-118
Portugal

Saboaria is in the centre of Portugal’s prettiest city Porto, a short walk from the Ribeira district and Avenida dos Aliados.

Planes

The city’s Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport is between 15 and 30 minutes by car from the hotel (depending on traffic). Transfers start from €30.

Trains

São Bento station is less than a kilometre away – hotel transfers to and from here cost €30. There’s also a metro stop within a minute’s walk (and you’ll be able to ride it all the way to the airport).

Automobiles

You’ll be within walking distance of many of Porto’s major sights, but if you have come by car, there’s public parking 100 metres down the road.

Worth getting out of bed for

Saboaria is in the centre of Porto, within walking distance of the Ribeira district, Torre dos Clérigos and the Mercado do Bolhão. You’ll also be able to stroll over to Avenida dos Aliados, Rua de Santa Catarina and bookshop of dreams Livraria Lello. If you fancy venturing out of the city, the Douro Valley’s many vineyards await – or you can try some of the best port going right here in Porto – just head to the port houses along the river in ​​Vila Nova de Gaia. For more culture, don’t miss the Teatro Rivoli, the Casa da Música and Fundação de Serralves, which houses an impressive collection of contemporary art. 

Local restaurants

If you’re here for the wine, Real has a whole cellar to choose your bottle from – the classic Portuguese menu features dishes such as cod fritters, stuffed sausage and sautéed squid. Brasão has outposts all over Porto, helpful if you find yourself in need of a meaty meal in various locations, including Vila Nova de Gaia. For something cosy and authentic, locate Voltaria on Rua Afonso Martins Alho and allocate some time for working through the Portuguese tapas. Nogueira’s is a smart, modern spot run by two brothers hoping to go global. And if you’ve escaped to the beach in Leça da Palmeira, don’t miss stopping by for some refreshments at Casa de Chá, a tea house built on the rocks.

Reviews

Photos Saboaria reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this fragrant hotel in Portugal and unpacked their fortified wine and fancy soaps, a full account of their city break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Saboaria in Porto…

This Porto pad has a perfumed past – it was once the Saboaria do Bolhão, a soap-making factory owned by a Galician family who lived within these sweet-smelling walls. They’ve moved out but left the fragrances behind at Saboaria, now a boutique hotel with rooms themed around different scents. The Baroque façade is intact, but rooms have been modernised – some are set across two levels, with a spiral staircase linking the bedroom upstairs and the living area downstairs. The historic centre of Porto, so special it’s a Unesco World Heritage Site, is within strolling (or stumbling home, post-riverfront-port-house crawl) distance. Life will soon be smelling of roses (and fortified wine).

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