After eight years, Cooking & Nature grew and abandoned its nest. Or rather, created a second one 150 meters next door. The Nest is the project created by the same team of the hotel of Alvados and is also a rural accommodation, designed to enjoy the Natural Park of the Serras de Aire and Candeeiros, where it is located.
A new construction was added to the old stone houses of the village entirely in light wood, inside and out. Each room (eight in all) has been named after a local animal and the idea is that it resembles a nest. The bedroom Perdiz even has an egg-shaped bed. In addition to this, there are also three apartments, all different, which resulted from the recovery of old ruins and which were designed for families, with capacity for two adults and two children. Breakfast is delivered to the door at the agreed time and the small kitchen allows you to prepare other meals.
Food is an important theme as it can be seen by the name of the parent unit. While in the original Cooking & Nature there are cooking workshops every day and dinners are made “in cooking lesson mode”, as owner Rui Anastácio says, at The Nest the dinners are “in healthy snack mode” and prepared in show-cooking, “with the possibility of guests intervening”. No one can get thirsty: next to the new pool there is an honesty bar where you can serve yourself and later add a note of what you’ve had.
With several routes available in nature – on foot, by electric bike or even on horseback – The Nest wants to “highlight the region as much as possible and work with locals”. This is also seen in the decor itself: the carpenter is local, the bathtubs are manufactured in the village (Porto de Mós), the clay washbasins are made by the same potter who also gives workshops at the property and the black out curtains are in burel from Mira de Aire.