Alentejo, Portugal

Vermelho Melides

Price per night from$311.17

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 (EUR297.50), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Vermelho Melides Photos

Style

Well-heeled haven

Setting

Sole of Melides

Explore

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Iconic-footwear designer, Christian Louboutin has brought his keen eye for style to Portugal’s quieter side with adults-only stay, Vermelho Melides. After (quite literally) stumbling upon the Alentejan outpost after a fall took him to a nearby hospital, fashion’s accessories doyen purchased a plot of land and got to work building his first home. Since then, he’s gathered a who’s-who of like-minded creatives to realise his vision for an art-driven, boutique abode with individually dressed rooms that pay subtle homage to Portuguese craftsmanship. Oh, and Vermelho is Portuguese for ‘red’, so the heeled hero’s scarlet tones are aplenty round here.

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A seasonal fruit bowl on arrival

Facilities

Photos Vermelho Melides facilities

Need to know

Rooms

13, including nine suites.

Check–Out

Noon, and check-in is at 3pm. Both are flexible, on request and subject to availability.

More details

Rates include an à la carte breakfast and access to digital newspapers.

Also

One of the rooms has been adapted for wheelchair users, and there are ramps and lifts around the hotel.

At the hotel

Rooftop terrace, private gardens, lounge and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: TV (on request), climate control, minibar, Nespresso coffee machine, tea-making kit, free bottled water, bathrobes and slippers, hairdryer and Kama Ayurveda bath products.

Our favourite rooms

Every room features its own unique application of Louboutin’s signature red and one-off, antique furnishings (one of the first-floor suites has a monkey-shaped rattan coffee table, and another with a Henri Samuel sofa). Most also overlook the gardens, and the ground-floor Jardim Portugûese gives you direct access. But taking the win for us is the Matinha Suite, which is filled with hand-painted, pastel murals from Greek artist and long-time friend of Louboutin, Konstantin Kakanias.

Poolside

Resting between native plants that colour the gardens, a naturally heated swimming pool – designed by French-landscaper Louis Benech – sits surrounded by grand Giuseppe Ducrot sculptures.

Spa

The spa is a small, intimate space built with sacred stones from bygone regional churches and designed to replicate an ancient temple. Masseurs work their restorative magic in two cocooning treatment rooms, combining traditional Indian healing practices with Anne Semonin oils with blissful results.

Packing tips

An empty camera roll for all the artwork you’ll inevitably be papping.

Also

If you look closely, you’ll spot subtle nods to Louboutin’s Egyptian heritage in the spa’s alabaster walls, sourced from Luxor, and the Matinha Suite’s coffered ceiling, carefully designed to replicate the Valley of the Kings’ tombs.

Children

This rarefied retreat is for over-16s only.

Sustainability efforts

Vermelho Melides has banned single-use plastic, energy is sourced geothermally and all the restaurant’s produce is sourced from local suppliers to cut food miles.

Food and Drink

Photos Vermelho Melides food and drink

Top Table

Take aperitifs up to the rooftop for sweeping vistas out to sea.

Dress Code

Why your Louboutins, of course.

Hotel restaurant

Fronted by a theatrical pastel facade that looks more decadently iced gingerbread house than restaurant, Xtian bursts with colourful character and zesty flavours from head chef David Abreu’s Portuguese-inspired fare. Standout dishes such as octopus salad, fried red mullet, bacalhau and just-like-your-gran-made-it chicken broth are paired with locally produced wines and whisked to chattering diners on red-woven Maison Gatti chairs. And come morning, tables are cleared to make way for oven-warm pastéis de nata and slices of sourdough topped with sweet, homemade jams. 

Hotel bar

The restaurant’s bespoke bar is a piece of art in itself, built with carved green Indian Giada marble and adorned with hammered silver leaf hand-applied by Seville-based silversmith, Orfebrería Villareal. To make matters all the more illustrious, barkeeps concoct creative cocktails and serve them to velvet, fireside banquettes for convivial evenings.

Last orders

Breakfast is plated from 8am to 11am; lunch from noon to 3.30pm, and dinner between 7pm and 10pm. The bar serves till midnight.

Room service

Dishes can be delivered to your door round-the-clock.

Location

Photos Vermelho Melides location
Address
Vermelho Melides
Rua Doutor Evaristo Sousa Gago 2
Melides
7570-6635
Portugal

You’ll find Vermelho Melides resting in its namesake beach town, along the Alentejo region’s stretch of coast in southwestern Portugal.

Planes

International flights land at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport, which is just under a 90-minute drive away. Faro Airport is a slightly further two-hour drive from the hotel. Private transfers can be arranged from both, for an additional charge.

Trains

Grândola station is a 20-minute drive from the hotel, and has direct trains into Lisbon.

Automobiles

A set of wheels will serve you well if you’re planning on venturing further than Vermelho’s gardens (even if it’s just to reach the beach and town centre). There are rental booths at both airports, and a private car park onsite that’s free to guests.

Worth getting out of bed for

Beach days tend to fill to-do lists during Alentejo’s summer season, and Melides’ main stretch of sand, Praia de Melides, is a 10-minute drive from Vermelho. If you’d rather something more adventurous than reading a good book on the beach, take to the waves with a surfing lesson or explore the coast on horseback. Culture-seekers can wander into the town centre, where you’ll find quaint cobblestoned streets lined with 18th- and 19th-century homes, and the Igreja de Santa Marinha ruins that date back to the 1400s. During the third weekend of November, the Melides Fair draws a crowd with its stalls of Alentejo- and Algarve-made handicrafts and delicacies.

Local restaurants

Melides isn’t short on family-owned eateries that fill with impressively made Alentejan dishes and local wines; and among them, you’ll find O Meldinese – storied for its garlic-dosed clams and fried sardines. Freshly caught fish is also the main event at O Fadista, a small dining spot in the town’s beating heart; or, for something a little different, Tosca serves refined Italian fare in a contemporary, coastal setting.

Reviews

Photos Vermelho Melides 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 regal retreat in Alentejo and unpacked their Louboutin trainers and ceramics, a full account of their slow-paced break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Vermelho Melides...

Imagine one of the biggest names in fashion opened a hotel; now place it in an in-the-wilds coastal town in Alentejo, and you’ve got Vermelho Melides – the wondrously offbeat brainchild of Christian Louboutin. Set in its namesake Melides, just south of Comporta and long-considered home for the man himself, this 13-room retreat was brought to life not just by Louboutin, but by a lengthy list of his creative peers who’ve done a stellar job of ensuring no two rooms are the same (apart from their subtle splashings of sole-matching red and nods to Iberian artistry). Textiles maestro Carolina Irving is to thank for the hotel’s meticulously embroidered upholstery, Seville-based antiques expert Patricia Abascal for handspun Alentejan ceramics, and Konstantin Kakanais for the Matinha Suite’s hand-painted murals – one of which abstractly depicts an angel flaunting her knee-high Louboutins. But the apotheosis of this boutique hideaway’s design is downstairs, where a bespoke silver-leafed Indian Giada marble bar is the setting for opulent aperitifs fit for fashion’s king. 

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Price per night from $311.17

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