Urban Jungle: Prado, a Restaurant in an Abandoned Factory in Lisbon

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As though The Lisboans—a bright, apartment-style hotel in Lisbon’s city center (see Apartments in Portugal with Vintage Style, Breakfast Included)—wasn’t already charming enough, here’s another reason to book a stay: Now you can venture downstairs for dinner at their restaurant, Prado Restaurante, housed in a portion of a former 19th-century candied fruit and preserves factory. When the team—architect Marta Fonseca, who also worked on converting a former factory into The Lisboans, and designers ArkStudio—found it, the factory was roofless, crumbling, and overgrown with vegetation. Though they enclosed it and restored the interiors, they kept a sense of the wild and overgrown, leaving the old factory machinery in place along the ceiling and introducing new plants that trail from the beams. It’s a fitting interior for a farm-to-table restaurant whose name means “meadow” in Portuguese. Take a look at the before and after, plus Prado Mercearia, the small market next door.

“After” photography by Rodrigo Cardoso, courtesy of Prado Restaurante.