Creative charm at The Largo, a meeting point on Porto and Portugal's yesteryear

In a glass cabinet in suite number seven there are several variations of a bizarre object: a ceramic egg with many protruding spouts. To find out what they are, one has to ask the hotel staff. And it is there that a surprising tale begins: the 'regador de fios de ovos', literally egg thread regulator, is a kitchen utensil that was used in the 16th century to create strands of yolk and sugar to decorate cakes. In each room there is a cabinet de curiosité where some often indecipherable 'tools for the imagination' are displayed, which help as an incipit to start a conversation with the staff. This is the idea behind The Largo, a small hotel in the historic centre of Porto by two Danish innovators. Per Enevoldsen, co-founder of Pandora Jewellery, and Steen Bock met through work, became friends and companions on many trips, and learned that the best trips are those that create meaningful connections with the destination. They also understood the fundamental role of hotels in knotting that bond. From there, Annassurra was born, their collection of travel and hospitality projects based in Copenhagen and Porto, where they opened The Largo in 2023, uniting five adjoining historic buildings overlooking a bohemian square (Largo de São Domingos) with outdoor tables, street musicians, an uninterrupted bustle of people, many tourists and university students in black cloaks.

Penthouse

You only have to sit outside with a persuasive Douro wine and watch what happens to realise that Porto looks like Lisbon twenty years ago, still naive, still vaguely decadent with that sun that confuses the seasons when it beats. The Largo is a meeting point between the city and the world. You enter through an ordinary front door. There is a small table for checking in, sofas and armchairs, a few books to browse through, a cupboard with the essentials for preparing a drink, a rock wall that gets damp when it rains, on which a video of leaves and flowers is projected in a loop, bringing to life that piece of mountain incorporated in the architecture. From there, various paths branch off between courtyards, small balconies, landings with works of art, stairs leading up to the terrace with a small swimming pool in front of the tangled roofs of an old town that grew more by contingency than by a precise urban plan. The mountain, the church, the unique light of Portugal, as precise as an architect's drawing. Also there is the breakfast room (we recommend the scrambled eggs with lobster), while you have to climb further up to reach the super-equipped Nordic-style gymnasium on three more panoramic floors.

Flôr, l’interno

There are eighteen rooms, all but two of them suites, with a kitchenette, with fresh fruit, the necessities for making coffee or a brew, and a well-stocked wine cellar. Spacious, bright, with a view of the always crowded piazzetta. But just close the windows to isolate yourself in a deep-sleep silence. The light-coloured, soothing interiors respect the original spaces, with new wooden picture ceilings, while the shabby old modules have been given to artists to interpret and are now displayed in the communal areas as works of art. To mingle in the daily life of the city, one has to go back downstairs to the Flôr, which by day is a bakery and by night becomes a cocktail bar with an excellent reputation judging by the crowd.

Cozinha das Flores

The same goes for Cozinha das Flores, the grill restaurant of chef Nuno Mendes, who returned home from England to revamp the local cuisine without traumatising it.

Cozinha das Flores

The turnip pastel de nata with a (very) generous topping of caviar and the brothy rice with blue lobster are as unforgettable as the azulejos wall decorating the room, the work of Álvaro Siza, the Pritzker Prize-winning, over-90-year-old architect who designed the extension of the contemporary art museum in Porto's beautiful Serralves Park.