Alcino Estalagem & Atelier

If you’re reading this - just book it! Highly recommend this special experience. We had the most beautiful 4-days here! It truly feels like home away from home. The ultimate relaxation station, oozing with creativity, character, charm, fascinating history and authentic Lençois culture. Alcino built this Pousada back in 1993 and has been welcoming fellow wanderers from all over the world ever since. Alcino is very welcoming, friendly, calm, and grounded - great company and very interesting to talk to! He’s a legend around town so be sure to ask him for tips and tricks. And then there’s the exquisite breakfast spread…honestly the yummiest breakfast ever! Raulinda is truly a chef who creates with heart, love, creativity and purely from instinct. She is a ray of sunshine - beautiful inside and out!! Creminda is a beautiful soul who makes magic happen on the housekeeping front. The dream team 💛 I’m genuinely sad to leave, and already can’t wait to return someday. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!

We booked two nights and ended up staying five, we just couldn't leave... Alcino is a trusting and exceptional host, he just made us feel at home. Relationship with the guests is totally based on trust. The house is beautiful, the room (suite) is large, comfortable and perfect to the smallest detais (lots of elctricity sockets, place for hanging towels etc, we even had flowers in the toilet when we arrived). They clean the room every day, Breakfast is an experience! All guests sit together around a big table and Alcino keeps bringing all kinds of brazilian specialties, many of them with a personal twist, no breakfast is similar to the others (we had five!) On the third morning I told Alcino I suspected he sent a detective to find out all the things I loved and missed. He answered: "I don't investigate, I read dreams", which I found very accurate! Location is perfect, five minutes walk from the main streets where all the restaurants are.||If you go to Lencois, just don't miss this place!!

Incredible stay at Alcino’s!! Would highly recommend!! Great service, to-die for breakfasts, and super location being a quiet spot yet easy access to the historic center.

Myself and my family visit Chapada Diamantina for several years, in fact, the National Park is one our favorite outdoors in the entire world. My wife, myself and my family always stay at Estalagem do Alcino, unless they are overbooked! Besides a very cozy, charming and retro atmosphere, the breakfast is a total culinary experience! Alcino himself is always pampering his guests with amazing small bites of local, sustainable and natural ingredients!!! The stay here is a fine experience! For the outdoors, it is almost impossible to describe the National park of Chapada Diamantina! Beautiful waterfalls in every hike! Few hours in the town of Lençois to multiple days as in Vale do Pati!! We truly recommend, if you want to have a unique experience on your nature trip with the absolutely best stay!!!

We stayed at Alcino's Estalagem in October and would highly recommend it. The hotel is located close to the centre of town, but just across the river so it's very quiet in that area. Alcino and his staff do everything they can to look after you, and it's wonderful to be in a house which has been built and decorated with such thought and style. Each room is very different - we stayed on the ground floor with our own bathroom, and our daughters were upstairs in a room which had an extra bed in it. All very comfortable, and mosquito nets although we did not need them. The real highlight of staying with Alcino is the breakfast. You all sit at a communal table in the patio (undercover) and at first it looks as if there is not too much on the table - but wait!! Juices, coffee (in real Italian coffee machines), hot milk, cereals, pastries, savouries, fruit, home made jams, tiramisu icecream(!), banana and meringue cakes - the variety never stops and Alcino serves you himself with a great understanding of the produce and ingredients. The details even go down to the crockery which is designed by Alcino.He really should write a book as the recipes are often his, and the quality is extraordinary.||Combine all this with his atelier where he produces and fires his ceramic art, a great library and interesting guests and you have an unforgettable experience. We were sad to leave and really want to return ....

We stayed overnight on our way between Vale do Capão and Salvador. Our only regrets were 1) we didn't stay longer 2) we had to catch the 07.30 bus and so missed breakfast. We were captivated by the charm of the house and gardens, and really liked Alcino the owner. He was very welcoming and seemed happy to spend time with us explaining about his ceramic work and how he had redesigned and refurbished the house and garden. Our room was lovely, and we found lots of things to buy in the pousada's Gallery. Alcino wrapped them very carefully for us and they all survived the trip back to England including Sonia, a rather plump ceramic lady in a bathing suit!

Breakfast, obvs, is beyond. It really is an experience, culinary and cultural (since you may be sharing your table with any number of other nationalities, which could be a potential sticking point depending on who you end up sitting next to, and how piggy they are). Even if you arrive late though (which, for the early-rising trekking crowd, means 8:30 is pushing it), you don't have to worry about supplies running out. The master of the house keeps the table running like a well-oiled machine. Your coffee is served before you even knew you wanted it, milk all steamed and frothed. The other delights just keep on coming. Just as you're wrapping your palate around a bowl of breadfruit custard, along comes a fresh spread of little pao de queijo. Over the course of four breakfasts we had French toast, nachos with guacamole, falafel, miniature quiches, miniature pizza, crepes, tapioca, squeaky cheese, peanut butter, yucca, lime merengue pie, shredded coconut cocada, and more fruits and juices than you would even want to look at after all the other delicacies. Everything comes in little bitefuls, but they add up quick. Everything else about the place is just a warm happy, carb-coma fuzz. Alcino himself is an extremely interesting and charming character with lots of local knowledge. There is so much to do in the area we were hardly ever in, but it was always nice to come back to the patio in the back to relax at the table (if the hammock was taken) checking wifi and browsing books. We can hardly recommend the place more.

First things first, the breakfast here is off the charts good. Plate after plate of delicious hand made food is brought out until you cannot fit any more in. The breakfast setting is wonderful too where there is a single communal table at which you get to know other travelers over your feast. |Secondly, the host Alcino makes this place very special. You feel as if you're a guest within his home and nothing is too much to ask the incredibly easy going and charming man. His advice on what to do within Lencois and around the Chapada Diamantina is pure gold. |Finally, the rooms are beautifully cared for and well equipped with air con and a private bathroom. All of this at a great price as well. We didn't want to leave this place, cat recommend enough.