The Torel is part of a small group that cut its teeth on the Avant Garde hotel, opening in 2017 above the Douro, with a quirky interior that takes in a living wall of moss in the spa, topsy-turvy faux-flower ceilings and rough-edged homages to famous painters. This is its second hotel in Porto and is more cohesive, classically structured in a former palazzo-turned-bank, with three floors of bedrooms linked by a dramatic central staircase, illuminated by the skylight above. The team invited in local artists and a design studio, with the brief riffing on the country’s seafaring Age of Discovery—you know, those intrepid 17th and 18th century explorers who battled sea monsters and charted far-off lands. Walk along the plant-potted entrance and there’s a gallery of sculpted heads looking down, antlered gods and spirits to one side, mere mortals on the other; large, deeply textured oil paintings by Jorge Curval—an elephant here, a cigarello-smoking woman there—are hung all about the building, alongside bespoke details such as door tassels and wooden cabinets. A third hotel opened in town earlier in 2020.

Each of the 12 bedrooms are individually designed, and imaginatively themed so each floor represents a different area of exploration—Africa, the Americas, Asia—defined by silk, raffia, cane, linens, and cotton, parrot-bright colors, tobacco browns, tiger prints, and wallpaper painstakingly made from banana leaf. The duplex Tea suite has a standalone bath rub beneath botanic prints, for example, while the two ground-floor Africa rooms have outdoor terraces; all rooms are high ceilinged, so even the smallest feels spacious; bathrooms tend to be dark, glittery spaces with brass taps and dramatic, lightning-strike marble.