Lisbon, Portugal

Valverde Hotel

Price per night from$284.10

Price information

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

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR262.60), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Secret terraced townhouse

Setting

Wide central boulevard

Shh, no one need know you’re staying at Valverde Hotel – a discreet, centrally located townhouse where A-listers grace the halls undisturbed. Its gorgeous, rose-hued façade veils a warren of hidden corners and tucked-away spaces, each showcasing the best of Portuguese interiors: heavy fabrics, artwork by Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Braz Gil porcelain and Moorish floor tiles. The pool and courtyard are quite the duo: marble-clad and jungle-like, respectively. Curl up in one of the sultry corners (the first-floor terrace and film-room snug are our favourites) after a day of easy exploration in the city of seven hills.

Smith Extra

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Return transfer to the hotel from the airport, port or a train station

Facilities

Photos Valverde Hotel facilities

Need to know

Rooms

48, including four suites.

Check–Out

12 noon, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £276.77 (€323), including tax at 23 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €2.00 per person per night on check-out.

More details

Rates include breakfast, served in the leafy corners of the courtyard. Try the stack of carob pancakes doused in maple syrup; top your toast with eggs-any-way; or start your day with homemade granola, yogurt and fresh fruits.

At the hotel

Heated pool, courtyard, treatment room and masseuse, small gym. In rooms: WiFi, TV, robes and slippers, hairdryer, Delta Q coffee machine and pods, desk, Zenology toiletries

Our favourite rooms

Junior suites are extra special – ask for room 202, 302 or 502 to secure a balcony overlooking Avenida da Liberdade. Décor is clean and crisp, with bright fabrics, 13th-century paintings and colourful sirgaria tassels. There’s plenty of room for your designer purchases in the walk-in, lighted closets.

Poolside

Pools are a rarity in Lisbon. Valverde’s marble-encased addition to this exclusive group provides welcome respite from the high temperatures of summer. The pool is heated, so a dip in winter is definitely on the cards, too – followed by a lounge on the wicker-style sunbeds, book in hand.

Spa

There’s a treatment room and in-house masseuse – book in for an 80-minute deep-tissue massage or a 30-minute jetlag recharge. The adjacent door reveals a small gym with a treadmill, elliptical trainer, mats and hand weights. There’s a private terrace to cool down on, post-workout.

Packing tips

Leave the heels at home for tackling the seven (or eight; it’s disputed) hills of Lisbon.

Children

Welcome, though the hotel is most popular with couples. Babysitting can be arranged for €40 per hour with advance notice. Extra beds for children up to 12 years are available for €37,50 per night in certain rooms, inclusive of breakfast. Cots are free.

Food and Drink

Photos Valverde Hotel food and drink

Top Table

We love the round tables on the raised courtyard terrace, especially in summer. If you’re wanting to fly under the radar, opt for one of the hidden tables, shaded from the sun by the lush vegetation of the courtyard.

Dress Code

Floor-length dresses, jumpsuits, linens and your favourite bow tie won’t look out of place here; but the reality is that anything goes.

Hotel restaurant

Sítio Valverde is helmed by chef Carla Sousa, who brings a Cape Verdean twist to traditional Portuguese dishes. Start with a warm bread roll, slathered with homemade herb butter and tomato tapenade: something of a palette cleanser for the rich dishes on the menu. Try the pork belly, lovingly cooked on a low heat for six hours and served with roasted pumpkin purée, roasted shallots and a port wine sauce; or the grouper with razor clams and salicornia rice. There’s always a vegetarian option, too, such as beet risotto with baby vegetables. Dishes change with the season, but one always remains: the Valverde hamburger – a veal burger in caco bread with foie-gras, cheese and homemade jam. The mood attained by low-key lighting, glossy green tiles and elegant table settings is heightened by the floor-to-ceiling wooden slatting separating each table. Sítio spills out into the courtyard, where you can enjoy dinner on a summer’s day, or an alfresco afternoon tea of carob and chia scones, smoked salmon finger sandwiches, and decadent chocolate cake.

Hotel bar

Take a seat in the courtyard and disclose your palette’s preferences to the bartender: dry, sweet, floral or sharp – soon after, a perfectly poured cocktail will arrive in your hand. The extensive menu has plenty of local wines and port, and the Valverde Spirit cocktail is as eclectic as the hotel itself: Tanqueray gin, lime, sugar cane, ginger beer, basil, cardamom and egg white foam. The bar becomes full on nights hosted by fado singers, whose lung-filling vocals reach increasingly more despairing crescendos.

Last orders

Breakfast is from 7.30–11am; lunch from 12.30–3pm and afternoon tea 5–7pm. Dinner is served between 7.30–10.30pm, and drinks finish up at midnight.

Room service

Room service can be ordered around the clock (with a reduced menu past kitchen hours), with an additional charge of five euros.

Location

Photos Valverde Hotel location
Address
Valverde Hotel
Avenida da Liberdade, 164
Lisbon
1250-146
Portugal

Step through Valverde’s discreet door from the pavement of Avenida da Liberdade, Lisbon’s grandest central boulevard.

Planes

Lisbon airport is a 20-minute taxi from the hotel. The team at Valverde will be happy to arrange your transfer.

Trains

Avenida metro station is less than a two-minute walk from the hotel; Rossio train station – with links to Sintra and Queluz – is a 10-minute walk away.

Automobiles

Much of Lisbon is walkable (and the trams are convenient, should you tire of the hills). If you do bring a car, there’s valet parking in a private garage for an additional €20 a day.

Worth getting out of bed for

Valverde’s central location means that many of Lisbon’s sights are within walking distance. Head up the Avenida da Liberdade to the top of Parque Eduardo VII – the burning calves are worth it for a bird’s-eye-view over the gardens, the Avenida and all the way to the Atlantic. Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara is another garden with a view – this time over the characteristic red roofs of the city. Get there by ascending the graffiti-art lined streets of Calçada da Glória – a particularly steep tram street – or, in fact, jump in the tram itself. The streets of Bica are atmospheric and very aesthetic – all pastel-coloured houses and foliage-covered cafés, with a growing community of independent restaurants, bars and boutiques. See the light at Caza das Vellas Loreto, a charming candle shop that has been in business since 1789. The postcard-worthy Bica Funicular is just off Calçada do Combro, regularly photographed on account of the view from the top of the line down to the sea. Speaking of which, pull up a deckchair at Quiosque Ribeira das Naus, a waterfront café-bar where you’ll find locals reading, chatting (and occasionally, napping) to the lull of the waves. The former munitions factory that is now home to Fábrica do Braço de Prata spans many mediums – its 20 rooms are used for concerts, art galleries, sound installations, exhibitions, vintage market and second hand bookshops. You name it, it’s probably in one of the rooms at FBP.

Local restaurants

Nab one of just 10 tables at Taberna da Rua des Flores – a real hole-in-the-wall restaurant near Calçada do Combro where the menu focuses on seafood: its daily changing menu stars classic mussels cooked in white-wine and parsley as well as more adventurous fare such as Japanese okonomiyaki and salt-flaked, melt-in-the-mouth pork neck. Finish with a dark chocolate and olive oil mousse, enjoyed with a crisp vinho verde. Arrive early (6pm) to avoid the queue. Ze da Mouraria 2 is well-loved by locals for its traditional bacalhau, laden with potatoes, chickpeas and local vegetables. But bring a big appetite – portions here are enorme. Offset the richness of last night’s feasting with brunch at Fauna & Flora, excellent for veggies and vegans. The menu has acai bowls, avocado nests and bagels (we loved the bagel filled with beetroot hummus, carrots, spinach and courgette).

Local cafés

Caffeine dependents rejoice: there are plenty of artisan brews just around the corner from the hotel. Stanislav might not seem the most obvious choice, being that it’s a Russian restaurant, but the coffee here is fantastic (and they have oat milk). The same goes for Fabrica, less than a five-minute walk from your doorstep. There are plenty of tables indoors and outdoors, and flaky pastries to pair with your flat white. A 15-minute stroll will take you to the pink façade of Seagull Method café. Ask for a window table to watch Lisbon life pass you by, mimosa in hand. Tuck into the meatballs with creamy polenta or the fresh smoked salmon with scrambled eggs, pickled onions and radishes on rye bread. Hello, Kristof is a more central option, with excellent coffee, lime-washed walls, shelves of magazines and four options for topped toast – we loved the brown sourdough loaded with avocado, lime, cucumber, chilli flakes and crispy onions.

Local bars

Park’s rooftop is just the place for rapturous sunset views, Aperol in hand. This isn’t the highest rooftop in the city, but it does give a patchwork painting-like vista of Lisbon’s red-tiled rooftops, colourful houses and grandiose stone churches. Head to fellow Smith hotel The Luminares – the bar here has a clear line of sight over neighbouring rooftops, towards the castle and out to sea. Bring in the evening with one of the hotel’s signature cocktails, El Gringo, a medley of Maker’s Mark bourbon, port, Benedictine liqueur and bitters. The terrace bar at Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara is great for a picture-worthy sundowner, too.

Reviews

Photos Valverde Hotel reviews
Millie Walton

Anonymous review

By Millie Walton, Writes from the art

There’s no better feeling when travelling to your hotel late at night to discover it’s only a five-minute drive from the airport, or, in our case, a few steps away from the metro station. From there, we emerged onto Avenida da Liberdade, one of Lisbon’s prettiest tree-lined boulevards, to find ourselves standing almost directly opposite the entrance to Valverde Hotel. Although we didn’t spot it at first – from the outside, the hotel takes on the guise of a townhouse, elegant and discreet. Inside, it’s a different story: interiors are sultry and just a little bit eccentric, with an array of retro veneered furniture, antique prints and art, heavy fabrics, and the occasional, brilliant burst of colour. It suits the labyrinthine nature of the building, where low-lit corridors lead to hidden places that feel secret.

On our first morning, in search of breakfast, we happily stumbled across the swimming pool and decided instead to go for a quick dip before we ate, which then became part of our daily routine. Located on a terrace overhanging the main courtyard, the pool is a true urban haven and a rarity in Lisbon, we were told, with just enough space to swim a few brisk lengths or wallow in the shallows if you’re feeling lazier. The latter was our MO – after a long day of wandering the streets and negotiating crowds of tourists, it was pure bliss to sink into the warm water and then flop down onto a day-bed for a late afternoon snooze.

This is the real charm of the hotel – it’s about as centrally located as it gets (from the front doors you can walk to just about anywhere in the city, as long as you don’t mind hiking up the occasional hill), but it also feels a world away from the chaos outside, particularly if, like us, you’re staying in a garden room, with a balcony overhanging the courtyard (pateo in local lingo). With terracotta tiles, another (decorative this time) pool and tall leafy plants, the courtyard reflects the city’s Moorish heritage and offers total seclusion from the outdoors. There’s a gentle hum of surrounding hubbub, but it’s much more muted and manageable when you’re seated beneath a giant fern with a cocktail in hand.

Breakfast is also served alfresco here (or within the restaurant on chiller days). It’s a buffet-style affair with a wide array of fruits, cereals, breads and bite-sized pastéis de nata – which went down a little too easily – or you can order more substantial dishes from the kitchen, such as carob pancakes with maple syrup (a local speciality) or eggs cooked however you like them. The omelettes were particularly buttery and delicious, folded over garlicky mushrooms and sweet, roasted tomatoes, finished with a sprinkling of herbs.

For lunch or dinner, the Sítio restaurant feels like a more formal setting with its fashionable glossy-green floor tiles and tall wooden slatted screens separating tables. We would have liked to see a few more regional options on the menu, but thoroughly enjoyed our meal of wild mushroom risotto, tuna with pearl barley and shrimp ceviche and pistachio-spackled cannoli for dessert.

The hotel also has a small spa and a gym with a treadmill and weights, but after setting ourselves the challenge of exploring all of the hotel concierge’s excellent recommendations (including a ramble around Alfama, Lisbon’s enchanting yet exhaustingly hilly old town), our tired limbs entreated us to retreat to our bedroom rather than notch up reps. Rooms follow the hotel’s slightly offbeat style, varying in size, shape and look; ours was located in a new extension, which had added 23 rooms to the original 25. It was spacious and uncluttered, but homey too, with wooden parquet flooring, rich velvet fabrics, and proper, heavy blackout curtains, meaning sound sleep was assured. We found it to be a soothing and restful space – somewhere we looked forward to returning at the end of each day at the hotel, safe in the knowledge that we had the easiest journey home awaiting us – even if we were reluctant to go.

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Price per night from $284.10