Theatre critic Nick Curtis spent 48 hours in Lisbon and Comporta at the invitation of JNcQUOI, the Portuguese luxury group, experiencing a weekend of sublime seafood, an on-call Range Rover and driver, and sunning and swimming from a lavish four-poster beach bed where staff proffered drinks, doughnuts and chilled cucumber slices. The district of Comporta, 90 minutes south of the capital, is an exclusive and carefully nurtured area of white sand beaches, rice paddies and storks nesting in electricity pylons.
JNcQUOI's expanding portfolio
JNcQUOI was founded in 2017 by Paula Amorim and Miguel Guedes De Sousa. It operates six restaurants and a members' club in Lisbon, Fashion Clinic boutiques selling Amorim's clothing and interiors collections around the country, and the Deli Suite, a restaurant with rooms in the town of Comporta, inland from the Beach Club.
The portfolio is soon to expand with the opening in Lisbon of House, a hotel where guests become temporary club members, designed by architect Vincent Van Duysen from a powder-blue townhouse that already contains JNcQUOI's newest restaurant, Table. There are also plans for a huge hotel and estate around a golf course in a historic fir forest set back from the Comporta sand dunes, due in 2028, comprising 64 villas and 34 larger pavilions, all with indoor and outdoor pools and dining areas, plus family and adults-only restaurants and pools, padel and tennis courts and a helipad.
A taste of the luxury experience
At the Lisbon restaurant Fish, Curtis was greeted by name and enjoyed a tomato water cocktail, Algarve oysters, fish tacos with mango and avocado, red shrimp on a quail's egg pancake, a whole grilled red snapper with tomato rice and green beans, and a not-too-sweet spin on the local milky flan. The following morning there was time for a walk to the mouth of the Tagus for coffee with a pastel de nata and a visit to the Sé cathedral.
In Comporta, the Deli Suite is currently JNcQUOI's only rentable property, a showcase for the founders' bold design ethos with a staircase faced in split, milled timbers painted red, white and blue, a circular sitting room, and a shaded terrace with seating for 12 where breakfast is served from the Deli restaurant below. Back at the beach, lunch at the Beach Club included tuna carpaccio, a whole grilled sea bream and Shark's Drool, a pudding made from local rice and pine nuts.
Prices and membership
Once House opens, guests can book one of its 16 suites, each with its own 24/7 butler, for €1,200 (£1,028) per room per night, with access to JNcQUOI membership benefits and chauffeured transport to the Deli Suite. The Comporta hotel is built around members buying the villas and pavilions, priced from €4.8 million to around €10m, which the company may then sublet in free months to other holidaymakers.
Membership of JNcQUOI costs €900 per year up to the age of 27, €2,200 for those aged 27 to 35, and €3,200 for those over 35. When asked who the membership was, Curtis was told it was "good looking people" and no footballers apart from Ronaldo, "because he's Ronaldo". Suites at JNcQUOI House are available from 1 October at £1,028 per night; the Deli Suite costs £343-1,071 per night for five guests.
