A place between the hills and the sea.
A hidden corner of the Algarve where Thai cooking meets the unhurried rhythm of the Portuguese countryside.
The land came first.
Before there were rooms or gardens or a kitchen humming with lemongrass and ginger, there was the land. A few hectares of rolling Algarve hillside in Santa Bárbara de Nexe, where wild rosemary grows between the stone walls and the light arrives each morning already warm. The soil here is red and generous. Fig trees root deep. Citrus holds on long into winter.
Mercedes Country House grew out of this landscape, not in spite of it. The building sits low against the hillside, a traditional Casa de Campo. Nine rooms. Stone, plaster, and timber. Gardens that blur the line between cultivated and wild. From the roof terrace, the view stretches across the hills toward the Serra do Caldeirão — no cranes, no construction, no noise. Just the country doing what it has always done.
Thai food. Portuguese soil.
There is a Thai restaurant at the heart of this country house. That sentence tends to surprise people. But step inside Siam and it makes immediate, quiet sense.
The kitchen tends its own patch of herbs and plants: Thai basil, lemongrass, galangal, chillies, mint, lemons. The garden is visible from the dining room, and what it yields shapes what reaches the table. Both Thai and Portuguese traditions share the same principle — start with what the soil gives you.
The gardens are right there. The kitchen is right here. The distance between them is measured in footsteps.
Nine rooms, on purpose.
Small enough that the staff know your name. Big enough to disappear into the gardens for the afternoon.
- 9 rooms. No queues, no shift changes, no buffet line.
- 50 m² saltwater pool. Generous for the number of guests who'll ever use it at once.
- Dogs & EVs welcome. Charging on site. Parking free.
- Between Faro & Albufeira. Any beach in 30 minutes, none of the coastal noise.
The Algarve's coast is beautiful. We won't argue otherwise. But the hills have something the beachfront hotels can't offer: stillness, space, and the particular quality of light that comes from elevation and open sky.
Stay with us.
For those who look a little further. There is a room here that will be difficult to leave.
