Pestana Announces Historic Investment in Downtown Porto

19 January 2018

The Pestana Hotel Group, the largest international hotel group of Portuguese origin, has just announced the opening of a new hotel under its Pestana Collection Hotels brand. The Pestana Porto – A Brasileira City Center & Heritage Building will open its doors to the public in early March in the centre of Porto. This inauguration comes hot on the heels of the launch of the Pestana Amsterdam Riverside Hotel & National Monument.

The new hotel is the result of a management support agreement between OPPA – A BRASILEIRA, LDA owned by the entrepreneur António Oliveira, developer and the project’s sole investor, and Dionísio Pestana’s group, becoming an integral part of the Pestana group’s distribution channels.

The Pestana Porto – A Brasileira is located next to the Sá da Bandeira Theatre and the famous São Bento Station, fifty meters from the Avenida dos Aliados and ten minutes from historic Ribeira district, which was granted World Heritage status by UNESCO.

The hotel will open in the refurbished century-old home of Porto’s famous A Brasileira Coffee Shop. The unit will have 90 rooms and suites spread over six floors, which have themes related to the spice trade in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, during the heyday of Portugal’s maritime expansion. The six themes that form the basis of the hotel’s design are coffee, cinnamon, tea, chocolate, anise and pink pepper.

The principal characteristics of the original façade and the ground floor rooms, including the cafeteria and restaurant, were preserved in a project developed by the architecture team of APPEL Office, led by the architect Ginestal Machado, and built by the construction company Mota Engil. Jaime Morais, who has participated on several Pestana projects, including the Pestana Palácio do Freixo, the Pestana CR7 Lisbon and the Pousada de Lisboa, was in charge of the new hotel’s interior design.

The restaurant, which has the capacity for more than a hundred people, remains faithful to the architect Januário Godinho’s original design. The renowned chef Rui Martins will lead the kitchen, with a contemporary menu inspired by traditional Portuguese cuisine.

The cafeteria, more than 115 years old, maintaining the original layout while reopening with a terrace designed to welcome visitors and do justice to its old motto – “The best coffee can be found at A Brasileira,” since the café was the first to sell coffee by the cup in the early twentieth century. An all-day dining menu will be available complete with light meals and a selection of unique coffees that promise to catapult A Brasileira back among the best cafés in Portugal.

A Brasileira thus gains a new life and new services which have been adapted to twenty-first century Porto, a city which has been elected the best European destination by European Consumers Choice three times.

The Pestana Porto is the group’s seventh unit to be opened under its Collection brand. The brand’s other units include the recently opened Pestana Amsterdam Riverside Hotel & National Monument, the future Pestana Plaza Mayor and Portugal’s Pestana Lisboa Palace Hotel & National Monument, the Pestana Vintage Porto Hotel & World Heritage Site, the Pestana Cidadela Cascais Pousada & Art District and the Pestana Palácio do Freixo Pousada & National Monument.

Original Story: dnotícias.pt

Translation: Richard Turner