I was looking forward to go back to the great design hotel The Vine, where I have already stayed in 2012 and 2015. The multiple award-winning, stylish interior design is by Nini Andrade Silva. The architect is Ricardo Bofill. The chef at the hotel’s excellent Uva restaurant is Thomas Faudry.
Hotel The Vine: interior design by Nina Andrade Silva
The Vine is situated in an apartment and shopping center complex built by the renowned Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill Leví (*1939), with the reception on the first floor. The five-star luxury hotel is part of Design Hotels.
At Hotel The Vine, you enter a different world. It is the work of Nini Andrade Silva, an interior designer who was born in Funchal in 1962, who has worked in London, Paris and New York and who owns design studios in Funchal and Lisbon. In her approach at The Vine, Nini Andrade Silva pays tribute to her native Madeira and everything that relates to wine.
View of a Grand Deluxe Spring Room. All photos copyright: Hotel The Vine, Funchal, Madeira.
Since the hotel rooms are distributed over four floors, Nini Andrade Silva came up with the idea of the four seasons and the different stages of grape maturation throughout the year. The canvas-lit ceilings are colored according to the season. For spring on the second floor, the designer chose the color green and green grapes, for summer on the third floor, she opted for burgundy and pink and ripe grapes, for winter on the fourth floor, she chose grey and trunks, for autumn on the fifth floor, she decided that brown and dried leaves were right.
On each floor, in the elevator area, screens light up, allusive to the vineyard and the season of ripening of the grape. Pillars have been transformed into lamps. Showers and taps take the form of cascades, creating waterfalls, reminiscent of Madeira’s nature. Many floor areas are made of pebbles, the typical Madeiran sidewalks.
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An unusual hotel for Madeira
The breakfast restaurant Terra Lounge on the first floor gives the impression of a sophisticated “parreira”, the leaves of the grape. According to the designer, Uva Restaurant with Chef Thomas Faudry on the top floor should remind us of small grapes, which have matured and display their full characteristics.
One of the two rooftop pools at The Vine. All photos copyright: design hotel The Vine, Funchal.
The terrace pool, also situated on the top floor, is in dark purple, with the intention of giving us the impression of a wine press where grapes get crushed and squeezed. Whatever you think of Nini Andrade Silva’s explanation, her design is stunning and the panoramic views over the city of Funchal and the Atlantic Ocean, with an infinity pool and a long infinity Jacuzzi, are breathtaking. The deckchairs are in round pebble or “calhau” shape. The lounge bar 360° has the color and the shape of a grape.
The Winter Garden uses sophisticated wicker, reminding us of the harvest and the baskets used to transport the grapes to the wine press. Typical Madeiran “estrelicia” flowers as well as actual grapevines grow around the balcony.
In addition to hydrotherapy, oil massage and exfoliation, the health spa of Hotel The Vine offers of course Vinotherapy in its elegant treatment rooms with products by TheraVine from South Africa, including Merlot, Chardonnay and Cabernet grape seed extracts.
View of the Panoramic Design Suite. All photos copyright: Hotel The Vine, Funchal.
In the past, I have stayed at the Summer Junior Suite 314. In 2020, I slept in the Grand Deluxe Room 509. All rooms at Hotel The Vine dispose of a bathtub and a separate walk-in shower as well as of a Nespresso machine. From the Panoramic Suite 507 as well as some other rooms on the fifth floor, you have an excellent view over Funchal and the port. Incidentally, the initial content of your minibar is included in the room price. Only once refilled, you have to pay the new bottles.
Hotel The Vine offers complimentary wired and wifi internet access in all rooms and suites. All rooms are equipped with 32” large, flat screen LCD cable TVs. The bed linens and towels are in Egyptian cotton. Deluxe Superior Rooms start at 30 square meters. My Summer Junior Suite 314 offered already a minimum of 55 square meters. The Design Suites dispose of between 73 and 83 square meters.
View of the breakfast restaurant Terra. All photos in this hotel review: copyright The Vine.
A design hotel
The lighting concept at Hotel The vine includes the use of coves of indirect illumination with fluorescent circuits and outbreaks of halogen fully encased in the ceiling, panels of screens and pillars of retro glass illuminated with printed photos. The pillars themselves have similar circuits to the canvas. Nini Andrade Silva is right, the effect is irresistible. It transmits an intimate theatricality.
The rooms are a the dream of any design-freak: lights by Lola Darlings and Terzani, backup table and desk lights by Rectângulo, designed by Nini Andrade Silva and produced by Indutora, back up table room lights by Philip Plain from Paris, bedside table lights Constanza by Luce Plane, reading lights bedside by Led Atcs, VG Material by Trotty. Everything provided by atelier Esboço, owned by Nini Andrade Silva.
As mentioned above, the pebble stones, the showers and the tabs are a reference to Madeira. “Vescon” wallpapers and mircocement used in the rooms, small tiles, gris glass and acrylic with images used in the top floor pool area give the hotel a contemporary design edge.
According to Nini Andrade Silva, it is “not what you see, but what you feel”, that makes a space special. To that effect, she is working with colors.
View of a Prestige Winter Room. All photos in this hotel review: copyright The Vine.
A hotel with a rough start – the mudslide of 2010
Owned by the brothers António and Norberto Henriques and now directed by Norberto’s son Gonçalo as CEO, Hotel The Vine had a rough start. It opened in December 2008 in the historic center of Funchal, giving an abandoned, formerly industrial area of the old town a fresh start. Its 79 rooms and suites in a contemporary, sophisticated and exuberant, yet discrete design, had to be abandoned temporarily because of the floods and mudslides of February 2010. The low levels of the complex built by Bofill, the shopping center and the underground parking, were totally flooded with water and mud. Hotel The Vine, situated on the first floor and above, was saved from the damage, but had to be closed for several weeks until the mess downstairs was cleaned up. Luckily, since April 2010, you can again fully enjoy a design jewel in the heart of Funchal!
In December 2019, the owner of The Vine has opened a new, 4-star hotel in Fuchal: Caju. It is named after the healthy cashew nut, which contains all essential amino acids.
Caju looks really great. Especially the one and only Junior Suite could be an option for my next trip to Funchal. The hotel designer is Nini Andrade Silva, who designed both The Vine and the brand new Savoy Palace Madeira. As for Caju, I went there more than once because the gym in the shopping center where The Vine is located is currently not accessible. Therefore, The Vine sends its guests over to Caju to use the gym over there, located just 300 meters away. You have to reserve your hour in the gym in advance, as is the case in most hotels on Madeira island. For massages and treatments, you can still you the spa at The Vine.
The rooftop terrace with the pool and Uva Restaurant & Wine Bar. All photos copyright: The Vine.
View of the other pool on roof. All photos in this hotel review: copyright: The Vine.
View of one of the treatment & massage rooms at A Divine Spa. Photo copyright: Hotel The Vine.
Another stylish treatment & massage room at A Divine Spa. Photos in this hotel review: copyright The Vine.
The fabulous rooftop Uva Bar and its great views. Photo copyright: The Vine.
Books about Madeira from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de. Hotel review added on October 12, 2020 at 15:41 Madeira time.
