The shoe designer has got into the hospitality game with the Vermelho hotel in Melides, Portugal
If you’ve done city breaks in Lisbon and Porto and explored the Algarve already, there’s a new Portuguese destination to get on your travel hit list. Melides, a coastal town in Alentejo, just south of Lisbon is the location for Vermelho, the first hotel from Christian Louboutin (he’s owned houses in the area since the late 80s). Yes if you want a slice of that Louboutin life beyond what you can wear on your feet, you can now holiday in style like the famous designer too.
The 13-room Vermelho is a celebration of craft, having been created with the help of architect Madalena Caiado, sculptor Guiseppe Ducrot, Greek artist Konstantin Kakanias, and landscape architect Louis Benech. The lavishly designed interiors reflect both his French and Egyptian heritage and his travels around the world, and include a green Indian marble bar with hammered silver panelling, alabaster from Luxor in the massage suite, a plunge pool complete with a sculpture of Neptune, traditional Portuguese ceramic tiles throughout the property, and plenty of that signature Louboutin scarlet as well (Vermelho is ‘red’ in Portuguese, so it’s only fitting).
The on-site restaurant Xtian, run by chef David Abreu, is doing a refined take on traditional Portuguese food, with dishes like octopus salad, grouper with razor clam sauce, lamb chops with migas & chimichurri, cod stew with potatoes & clams, and poached pear with mulled wine, and of course, it looks the part too.
Two more properties are also in the works – a 10-room property overlooking the lagoon that’s slated to be ready for 2024, and a third in the pine woods – so this could just be the beginning of a new hotel empire.
R. Dr. Evaristo Sousa Gago 2, 7570-635 Melides, Portugal
vermelhohotel.com