Cavalariça Restaurant

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The extensive palace renovation programme included the palace restaurant and the esplanade, one of the property’s most iconic spaces. Backed by the Cadaval family, the restaurant interior welcomed the creative input of renowned designer Jacques Grange, while the courtyard was reimagined, in a clear nod to its Arabic influences, by landscape designer Louis Benech.

The inspiration behind the restaurant renovation, guiding the designs from the outset, was South African artist Esther Mahlangu, famed Ndebele artist who, as part of the ‘African Passions’ exhibition held at the palace in 2018, was invited to paint the columns of the restaurant, a frieze over the archway and mural inside the courtyard. Esther’s brightly coloured geometric artwork set the tone for Jacques Grange, who made it his key motivation to highlight the artwork of the African tribal artist. Under Benech’s guidance the courtyard takes on an Andalusian feel, with newly installed square fountains, geometrically planted orange trees, and leafy climbers. Inside, Grange drew on Esther’s bright palette and geometric shapes, to produce an explosion of colours, highlighted by hand-painted black and yellow ceiling patterns, zigzag mosaic flooring and bright turquoise bar area.

The successful renovation clears the way for the re-opening of the restaurant, with the palace inviting the partners behind Cavalariça, which has two further restaurants in Lisbon and Comporta, to take up the reins. Partners Christopher Morrel, Bruno Caseiro and Filipa Gonçalves jumped at the chance to open their third restaurant in this singular and prestigious historic setting.

For reservations and more information: www.cavalarica.com
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Cavalariça Restaurant

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Jacques Grange

Fêted by friends, colleagues and clients as having an unrivalled and unique understanding of culture and decorative art, renowned French interior designer Jacques Grange enjoys an intimate relationship with Portugal, having fallen in love with an old fisherman’s cottage in Comporta some three decades ago. His career has seen him in contact with a long line of people, who have helped shape his ‘designer’s eye’, traversing Europe and beyond, from French châteaux to Yves Saint Laurent’s Moroccan garden villa, developing his much-revered classical-meets-contemporary signature. A close family friend of long standing, Jacques was asked by the Cadaval family to help with the design of their restaurant. In Évora, the iconic use of colour is patent from the outset, with Grange drawing his initial inspiration from a mural in the restaurant space, commissioned by Alexandra de Cadaval from South African artist Esther Mahlangu on the occasion of Evora Afrika Festival. Jacques drew on the bright palette of Esther’s mural, reinforcing it and using it as a base for the new design, in an explosion of colours that celebrates as much the work of the African artist as the wonder of the historic venue.     

Jacques Grange

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Louis Benech

Whether reviving historic gardens, designing outdoor furniture or creating private gardens that truly converse with their fortunate owners, Louis Benech is one of France’s best-known landscape designers. Having worked all around the world, including Portugal and Morocco, Benech’s style ensures the subtlest of interplay between natural setting and architected space, harmonising the two to create a seamless whole. A friend of the Cadaval family, Louis Benech was asked to lend his creative talent to the Cadaval Palace courtyard, producing an Andalusian-inspired space that truly befits the history around it. Of the design, he says: “Leaving the Roman temple and entering the space in between the Church of Saint John the Evangelist and the Palace, you discover a most beautiful, singular place with only two trees: a fig tree, on the far-right hand side corner by the chapel’s choir, and a huge, beautiful loquat (Japanese medlar). Behind it a building, with its strange, painted mortar roof, resembling some kind of Muslim tomb, poetically reminding us of the early ages of the Moorish influence of the initial palace. Thanks to this limit, the intention was to retain an Andalusian-feel atmosphere in the courtyard, with the addition of small, square fountains, giving freshness and this delicious noise, and also the hope of more shade given by geometrical planting of orange trees. To complete the ‘twist’, a few climbing, leafy plants, contrasting with the white of the whitewashed walls.”

Louis Benech

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Louis Benech

Whether reviving historic gardens, designing outdoor furniture or creating private gardens that truly converse with their fortunate owners, Louis Benech is one of France’s best-known landscape designers. Having worked all around the world, including Portugal and Morocco, Benech’s style ensures the subtlest of interplay between natural setting and architected space, harmonising the two to create a seamless whole. A friend of the Cadaval family, Louis Benech was asked to lend his creative talent to the Cadaval Palace courtyard, producing an Andalusian-inspired space that truly befits the history around it. Of the design, he says: “Leaving the Roman temple and entering the space in between the Church of Saint John the Evangelist and the Palace, you discover a most beautiful, singular place with only two trees: a fig tree, on the far-right hand side corner by the chapel’s choir, and a huge, beautiful loquat (Japanese medlar). Behind it a building, with its strange, painted mortar roof, resembling some kind of Muslim tomb, poetically reminding us of the early ages of the Moorish influence of the initial palace. Thanks to this limit, the intention was to retain an Andalusian-feel atmosphere in the courtyard, with the addition of small, square fountains, giving freshness and this delicious noise, and also the hope of more shade given by geometrical planting of orange trees. To complete the ‘twist’, a few climbing, leafy plants, contrasting with the white of the whitewashed walls.”

Louis Benech

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