Lisbon, Portugal

Sublime Lisboa

Price per night from$294.87

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 (EUR279.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Luvvie’s lair

Setting

Bourgeois bairro

Once home to a restaurant owned by prized Portuguese actress and singer (and Eurovision entrant) Simone de Oliveira, Sublime Lisboa is as jazz-hands as ever today. There’s a restaurant that wouldn’t look out of place in NYC (plus a chef imported from the Big Apple for authenticity), infinite geometric patterns on the wallpaper and breakfasts at a film-star-worthy hour of whenever you get out of bed. The bohemian bolthole is a little away from the Bairro Alto buzz, in a northern neighbourhood called Amoreiras, which means fewer tourists and more of this cosmopolitan corner all to yourselves.

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A bottle of wine

Facilities

Photos Sublime Lisboa facilities

Need to know

Rooms

15, including seven suites.

Check–Out

Noon. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

More details

Rates usually include breakfast.

At the hotel

Free WiFi throughout. In rooms: air-conditioning, minibar, coffee machine and Bluetooth sound-system.

Our favourite rooms

For more space, go for an aptly named Sublime Suite – choose between the one on the corner with a balcony that feels like a petite palace, or the two higher up in the old building with a sunny terrace each (on which the team can arrange romantic dinners).

Spa

The hotel may not have a spa, pool or gym of its own, but that’s what neighbours are for: guests can buy discounted day passes for the nearby Sayanna Spa and Club VII, which has a gym, pool and tennis courts.

Packing tips

Bring sensible shoes for strolling down to and around Bairro Alto – the clue’s in the name: Lisbon’s Upper District sits at the top of the hill, with a grid of narrow streets set out in a pre-stiletto 1513.

Also

Some of the rooms can be reached by the lift, for wheelchair users.

Pet‐friendly

Up to two pets are welcome, provided their combined weight doesn’t exceed 15kg; bowls and treats are included. There’s a €50 cleaning fee a stay and a deposit of €150 is required. See more pet-friendly hotels in Lisbon.

Children

Families should book a Marquês or Sublime Suite, which has space for an extra bed (€90), or the set of connecting rooms. Babysitting is available with 48 hours’ notice; prices start from €20 an hour.

Sustainability efforts

The hotel’s sister property in the seaside village of Comporta, an hour’s drive south of Lisbon, has an organic garden that supplies much of Sublime Lisboa’s produce, and the bath products are made from all-natural ingredients.

Food and Drink

Photos Sublime Lisboa food and drink

Top Table

The surprisingly stylish meeting room has a big communal table, or sit near the kitchen to watch the chefs at work. The outdoor seats are perfect for cooling cocktails in the afternoon.

Dress Code

As smart as the lunching suits (the area is home to lots of law firms).

Hotel restaurant

Davvero poached its chef from Cipriani in New York and the decor bears more than a passing resemblance to a slick Big Apple brasserie: navy velvet banquettes, crisp white tablecloths and impeccably polished hanging flutes for fizz. Produce from the seaside sister property’s organic Comporta garden is put to good use in Italian-Portuguese dishes, which include beef carpaccio with parmesan cream, cuttlefish risotto and whipped salt cod with crispy polenta. Breakfast involves bread made on site and baked goods courtesy of the Italian pastry chef – and you can have it any time you like (literally).

Hotel bar

Work your way through the great cocktails of the world, from the Bellini to the Garibaldi via a Paloma, at Davvero’s bar.

Last orders

Breakfast can be at 4pm if that’s when you want it, but the croissants eventually stop flowing at 7pm. Lunch hours are a more orthodox 12.30pm to 3pm, and dinner is from 7.30pm to 10.30pm.

Room service

Food can be delivered to your room 24 hours a day, but between 10.30pm and 7am, it’s a reduced menu.

Location

Photos Sublime Lisboa location
Address
Sublime Lisboa
Rua Marquês Subserra 10
Lisbon
1070-170
Portugal

This Sublime outpost is in Lisbon’s Amoreiras (of shopping-mall fame) district, to the north of the city centre.

Planes

The drive from Humberto Delgado Airport should take a quarter of an hour; the hotel can arrange transfers, or you can hop in a cab or summon a ride via an app.

Trains

To the north of the city centre, Sete Rios is the nearest rail station. Taxis from here to the hotel should take less than 10 minutes and cost around €10.

Automobiles

The easiest way to get to Lisbon’s other neighbourhoods is by taxi or on foot – it’s a 30-minute walk to the cobblestones of Bairro Alto. If you have come by car, there’s public parking available.

Worth getting out of bed for

The main selling point of Amoreiras is its shiny, glass-encased shopping mall, which has a viewing platform to see the Lisbon skyline from, too. It’s a quick (15-minute) cab ride to Bairro Alto, or you can walk it in around half an hour. The team can arrange activities including tennis (or padel if you want to impress the locals) lessons and yoga. 

Local restaurants

It may involve strip-lighting and a questionable love of green, but there’s a reason Pinóquio has been one of the city’s most-loved restaurants for 40 years (namely: its seafood). Dinosaur skeletons, lantern-covered ceilings and hanging foliage form the backdrop at the impossible-to-pronounce Jncquoi. And if you want to swap sardines for sushi, book in at Yakuza, Lisbon’s finest Japanese restaurant.

Local bars

Travel back in time to the 1920s via the velvet seats, vintage lamps and Prohibition-strength drinks at Procópio in Amoreiras. A bit bonkers (but in a good way), Pavilhão Chinês in Príncipe Real lets you imbibe culture alongside your cocktails: the bar, which is in an old grocery store, has five rooms that are technically a museum, dedicated to toys of the First and Second World Wars. 

Reviews

Photos Sublime Lisboa reviews
Tori Dance

Anonymous review

By Tori Dance, Culture hound

I’m not an especially sloth-like creature. If anything, I’m the kind of eager beaver explorer who’s keen to make sure they haven’t missed a single must-see, which made it an even greater luxury (and surprise even to me) to sleep-in so outrageously late during our stay at this sophisticated townhouse. 

The reason? Breakfast is served at whatever time Mr & Mrs Smith desire it. 11am, 3pm, you name it and the strong coffee, freshly baked goods and perfect eggs are served! 

It might not sound revolutionary but as Mr Smith and I discussed the myriad merits of lazy lie-ins over said breakfast, we realised how utterly ridiculous it is to ever set an alarm on one’s holidays. Especially on this rarest of occasions, a three-day escape from our little tykes who love to rise with the sun, if not before it.

Fully rested and full of pastry we step out into the elegant Amoreiras district and the blinding sunshine, gulping down fresh air – and life with it. It’s early Spring and the first time us Londoners have seen that yellow ball in the sky in a month or three. 

We stroll up to the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum and soak up some of the mind-bogglingly broad permanent collection from macabre Egyptian artefacts to an entire room dedicated to René Lalique’s exquisite jewellery. 

We pick up fresh juices from the café and enjoy them on the grass in the peaceful park that surrounds the Barbican-like building, plotting our next move. 

Whilst the historic streets of Lisbon are a joy to explore on foot, the city is built on seven hills so it can prove something of a workout. The iconic yellow trams provide a nippier way to tick off the sights but the one we aim to jump aboard is overflowing with over zealous influencers – and besides, we want to set our own pace. 

So it’s eBikes for us adventurers. We speed past ancient buildings and impressive ruins and are tucking into Petiscos in the hipster Alcântara district in no time. 

We take the scenic route and whizz along the seafront before pulling up our trusty steeds for a (non-earned, the bike’s electric innit!) pitstop at Javà, a rooftop bar proffering panoramic views over the city and the Tagus River. 

It’s Wednesday but with the sun shining and the spritz’s on tap, the mood screams Friday. However, I’ve had one thing on my mind all day and so we hotfoot it back to our Lisboa room…for a soak in the delectably deep sunken bath. As I descend under the bubbles Mr Smith orders signature cocktails to the room and I’m in heaven.  

Our room is a high-spec haven, spacious for a city hotel and beautifully designed (big windows, bright colours, high ceilings and clean lines); everything works and is exactly where it should be, which sounds obvious for a luxury hotel but is in fact far rarer than it should be. 

Pampered and preened it feels right that we pop out for a cocktail before sitting down to dinner at Davvero, the hotel’s rather special restaurant. So I nip to see my old friend Renato on reception. 

(Spoiler: he’s not really my old friend, the hotel concierge WhatsApped me last week offering to assist with requests for our stay – a few messages later and all sorts has been sorted for us, with friendly emojis thrown in for good measure. The most pleasant and efficient concierge service I’ve ever known. Now That’s What I Call Service.) 

Renato has just the ticket (of course he does, the man’s a legend!) and waves us off down the road with strict instructions on how to find a clandestine cocktail bar. A loud knock on an unmarked door and we’re soon propping up the bar at the somewhat whimsical Procópio where we’re purring over tantalisingly frothy pisco sours. 

Mr Smith gets chatting to the landlady, noting the bar’s similarities (Seventies kitsch with a big nod to art nouveax) to one of our more eclectic local boozers back home. ‘Ah yes’ she says, ‘my father founded this place 51 years ago, inspired by the pubs of London… and the brothels of Paris.’ Take that for a ‘concept’, Hackney!

Onwards, to Davvero, which I’m delighted to find has nothing in common with a brothel and is instead brimming with elegant-looking, well-dressed, wine-sipping guests. 

The menu might be Italian but the vibe is New York, unsurprising considering the chef hails from Cipriani in the Big Apple. We settle in for an evening of top drawer service and stupendously good food – from piping hot pea and mozzarella croquettes and whipped salted cod with crispy polenta to the buttery caper-covered wild seabass, washed down with a delightfully quaffable vinho verde. 

Portuguese produce is at the fore and, better still, much of it hails from the garden of the hotel’s sister property in Comporta. I’ve had my eyes on Mr Smith’s majestic looking lemon meringue pie all evening but the wildly moreish shoestring potatoes got the better of me and I can’t squeeze another morsel in. And so to bed. 

Even out of season it’s easy to see why Lisbon’s the word on everyone’s lips lately and our faultless stay at this new hotel made us the greatest converts. As we twiddle our thumbs in the light-filled hotel library the next morning I stumble upon Assouline’s Comporta Bliss – and by the time we’re in airport-bound in a taxi I’m Googling that sister hotel in Comporta ‘surrounded by undulating pines, wild sand dunes and pristine white-sand beaches’ – which really does sound Sublime. 

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Price per night from $290.64