Ericeira, Portugal
Seven rooms on the cliff at Ribeira d'Ilhas. Salt in the air, one long table, and nothing much to do before lunch.
The house
A 1970s modernist shell, opened up and softened: lime plaster, oiled pine, linen the colour of wet sand. Every room faces either the water or the courtyard, and the courtyard smells of fig from May onwards.
“We kept the walls and threw away the corridor.”
Breakfast is served on the terrace until eleven. After that the kitchen belongs to whoever is cooking dinner, which is usually Inês.
Suites
Our largest spaces, each with a terrace or a Juliet balcony. Rates below are live — pick your dates above and they price instantly.
The table
One sitting, one menu, whatever came off the boat at Ericeira that afternoon. Guests eat together at a nine-metre table made from a single pine that fell in the storm of 2019.
Wine is from the Colares sand vineyards up the coast, which is the only place in Portugal where the vines never met phylloxera.
While you are here
A right-hand point that works from knee-high to overhead. Boards and a patient instructor are ten minutes down the path.
The market opens at seven and is finished by ten. Go for the bread, stay for the arguments about tomatoes.
Salt scrub, warm oil, and the west-facing window. Ninety minutes, booked into the evening light.