Patricia Urquiola opens an arrival hall on Praça do Comércio

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Praça do Comércio was once the gateway to Lisbon, the square where the caravels unloaded gold and spice. A 170-room hotel by Patricia Urquiola has just claimed a long stretch of it.

Walk in through the doorway on Rua do Comércio and the colour arrives before the staff do. Beatrice Bonafini has worked in cork. Her piece covers the wall of the Andaz Lounge, vivid and tactile, the kind of material that asks to be touched. The bar at the centre of the lounge is built to read like one of the green-and-white kiosks that punctuate the city’s avenidas. The street has been brought indoors.

The site sits opposite MUDA, Lisbon’s design museum, and looks directly onto the Rua Augusta Arch. The arch was built to mark the city’s recovery after the 1755 earthquake. Vasco da Gama keeps watch from the top. Several rooms wake up facing him.

The colours

Patricia Urquiola took the entire interior and built it as a single argument about Portuguese geography. Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Goa, Brazil, Japan, Macau. Each one threaded into wall coverings, ceilings, panelling. On the roof, in the restaurant called Luzzi, the floors are blue. They stand in for the ocean that links the seven. African textiles cover the ceiling. Japanese rope masks hang next to bold Portuguese murals.

Federica Sala curated the art. Cork pieces by Beatrice Bonafini, geometric textiles by Rosarinho Andrade, abstract diptychs in yellow and blue by Farinha Rosa, all of it set against tactile wood panelling and bespoke furniture from Studio Urquiola. The local material is everywhere if you want to look for it. Lioz stone in the basins. Cork in the walls. Hand-thrown ceramics on the surfaces. Tile, always tile.

The Arch Suite

There are 170 rooms. Four of them are called Arch Suites and face the Rua Augusta Arch head-on. From bed, the morning light comes up the Tagus and hits the gilded statues at the top of the arch. Vasco da Gama, Viriato, Marquês de Pombal, Nuno Álvares Pereira. They are still there when you brush your teeth.

The bathrooms are walled in glossy red, a colour pulled straight from Lisbon’s rooftops. Red and white tile runs the length of the floor. Basins are square and cut from Lioz stone, the cream limestone that paves the calçada underfoot. A double shower. A tub deep enough to disappear in. Eleventh Hour by Byredo on the shelf.

The mini-bar is a Portugal lesson. White port from the north. Ginja from Óbidos, sweet and sour. Sagres beer from the Algarve. A Portuguese gin called Sharish. The coffee cups are by Vista Alegre, painted to mimic the limestone calçada that runs the length of every Lisbon pavement. The tonic comes from Tribute. The water is local.

Luzzi, on the roof

Chef Bruno Alves calls his kitchen modern Lusitanian. The plates trace the same map Urquiola put on the walls. Kibbeh that travelled with the Portuguese from the Levant to Brazil, served here with bulgur and citrus tahini. Tuna tartare lifted from a Cape Verde pie, threaded with Japanese spices and Angolan piri-piri. Guinea fowl in a clay pot with cachupa, also from Cape Verde. A layered Goan pudding with roasted coconut sorbet and a glaze made from Douro port.

The terrace runs the length of the roof. Live music starts in the evening, the wind comes off the Tagus, the lights of Castelo de São Jorge sit on the hill above. Downstairs in the Andaz Lounge, the cocktail list moves through Portuguese wines made by women only. The pennyroyal soda is mixed in-house. The cod fritters arrive without ceremony. The Basque cheesecake is built with Serra da Estrela sheep’s cheese.

The verdict

The spa has not opened yet. There is a treadmill on the ground floor while the wellness rooms are being finished. None of it matters. The roof has a niche with one small table set into the parapet, looking straight through the arch. Sit there at sundown with the pennyroyal soda. Lisbon has waited a long time for a hotel that takes the city’s history of arrivals and turns it into a room.

This is also the first Andaz to open since Hyatt’s acquisition of The Standard. The upscale tilt is visible everywhere. The luggage tags are heavier. The cups are by Vista Alegre. The art has a curator. The walls are by Bonafini. Something has shifted at the brand, and Praça do Comércio is where it gets argued.

The Splendid Edit visited Andaz Lisbon ahead of its opening week on Praça do Comércio, May 2026. Standard rates from approximately €380 per night, with the Arch Suite considerably higher. Book through hyatt.com.

Photography courtesy of Andaz Lisbon