Alface Hall Hostel & Bar

Great location but extremely hard to get any sleep here - on a busy street with bars open late every night. Room gets very hot - no AC just a small fan provided. The building has a very musty smell. Showers are too hot.

Cockroaches in the women’s shower. Bugs flying around the room. Located right above a street with many bars- music plays till 2am, super difficult to fall asleep. Staff were not friendly. Bathroom smelled awful. If you have a few extra $$ to spend I recommend going elsewhere.

A beautiful old building with both private and dorm rooms. Shared bathrooms were small but never busy, and same goes for the kitchen. They theoretically have a bar but it was closed the whole time we were there - sad! Otherwise - grateful for the staff recommendation of O Trevo for breakfasts, and happy to have stayed in a beautiful and bustling area of Lisboa.

Super unique place with live music, in a very intimate setting. We sadly just missed the music the evening we dropped by, but stuck around for a couple of drinks. Music ends at 2300 due to noise regulations. Staff were great and the environment was inviting. I’d definitely return, but would ensure I was there in time to check out the show, as it looked like a lot of fun.

The hostel is strategic location. The room is clean. Bath , toilet are in separate area. I like their kitchen with utensils and also some leftover seasining, oil by previous travellers. You will have music every night.

My experience staying at this hostel was pretty bad and it´s a shame because the hostel is quite nice BUT the bedroom STINKS really bad! The smell was so hideous that gave me nausea every night, it was an odor like putrid sewer. When i asked for a solution they only suggested I should open the window... Every day I had to open the window and the door wide open so the air stream washed away the smell. The worst part was that when I closed the window at night (because of the noisy street) the odor came back, so either way i couldn´t sleep well because of the noise coming from the street or from the nauseating odor... I even bought a face mask thinking that would cover the odor but it didn´t help. The kitchen was nice and the bathroom was ok. The atencion was ok, the brunette girl was really nice.

One of the worst stays ever. The room wasn't ready when we came, so we had to wait. All the cleaning was done in 10 minutes though, which you can easily see from how dirty the room was. Towels were covered in stains. Zero soundproofing and extremely noisy both on the streets and in the hostel. You basically won't be able to sleep until 4-5AM at all. If that's the plan anyway, then it might be an option for you, otherwise stay away. They've got a second pair of keys locked in a box in case you drink too much and lose the main key (it's a bar area, yeah), they have codes from these boxes all on one piece of paper, that they offer you to take a picture of. So you automatically know how to get keys to all rooms, and so do others.

Loved staying at Alface! Clean, comfortable and very funky. Bathrooms are consistently kept clean. The location is also excellent! While there are bars located right outside the window (making it an awesome location) the doors are incredible and block out almost all sound. You feel very safe and secure here, while also soaking up great Lisbon atmosphere! Will come again!

This will be less a review than a love letter, but I needed someplace to stay for 30 days in Lisbon, & every other hostel I contacted had a two week maximum. These people were kind enough to take a chance on me for that long, & even so, you know, here you show up the first nite in the pouring rain, not sure what to expect from the full month you signed up for... You go through this old green door & up the stairs, it's a building from deep in time, & your room is simple & sweet, just like the breakfast every morning, & week after week you fall into a rhythm with the hilarious kindhearted mother from Brazil who cleans out your room for instance, or the clever Canadian dude who does music, or the young Portuguese gal who watches MTV & loves poetry & ice cream, & her streetwise young friend who stops by to share food with her & also works the bar in the little concert hall downstairs. Ahh, & the concert hall downstairs...so much jammin' gorgeous awesome music comes out of that place, & sometimes it's packed to the gills, & better times it's more relaxed & open, & if you're in the mood you can put on shoes & go down & rock out a little, but either way you'll be standing at the tiny balcony waiting for your food to cook some nite, & the lilting strains of a world class cover of "So Rude" will come drifting up through the alleyway, & you'll wonder how you got to be this classy. I don't want to embarrass him, but there's a guy who works there with his wife, who looks herself like an icon of vintage Italian cinema...& it's the most touching thing, whether it's her, or one of several other employees who do the overnite shift, it doesn't matter what's going on or what kind of day you might be having, they are always, always sitting there in the front room in the dark, sometimes with a full nest of blankets gathered up around them, just there on hand to let you in. I think it's a little on the miraculous side, but in truth not once in all those 30 days was there even a hint that I was being a hassle to them, no matter what time of the night I might show up. You can hardly imagine it. My last nite a woman I'd spoken with a few times, who lived in the States in the 80s, she was the one on duty. It was 3 or 4 in the morning, I had to go get a cab for a very early flight. but she was still up & around to serve me a last beer from the little fridge & take my key & ease me through the pain of saying a very tough goodbye. But anyway this guy, we were watching Portuguese news around the TV one lunchtime, & it was the latest from D to the T, & then it was some shooting at a Black Friday whatever, & footage of all these Americans with shopping bags running through some retail landscape screaming, & I said to this guy, just half-jokingly like "Man, what must you think of us after all this, for real...?!" He responded with some candid & heavy words that I'll never forget, & he talked about some of the indignities of dealing directly with American tourists besides, which one can only imagine. Listen, the neighborhood goes late & loud, & it's definitely not ideal for young children & all that, but there's still a level of poise & decorum that I would assert is very native to Portugal & also very easy for Americans to blow past in their blind appetite for diversion & recreation overseas. Which is me trying to put it as diplomatically as possible. Graffiti from a wall down the block: ENJOY // BEHAVE So I would just say that this place gets 10 out of 5 stars for me, that they allowed my experience in Lisbon to be the life-changing period that it was, by so many simple steady acts of kindness & welcome, & I would ask that if you go there, that you treat the place & its people with your utmost goodness & respect. 'Alface' is the Portuguese word for lettuce, & the designation 'Lisboeta' for residents is typically supplanted by 'Alfacinha'. As I understand it the exact history is somewhat shrouded, but one theory is that in a time of war the city was barricaded by a hostile force & lettuce was the only way the trapped people could survive. That quiet strength & dignity I found among them, & it was so beautiful, & I drank it deep. I could have walked away with a much more mediocre experience & still been pretty happy, but instead, & massively because of Alface Hostel, it was perfection. Thank you. CR

Stunning! Excellent Music between 10-12 pm weekdays ( at least on wednesdays :) Good cocrails, very cosy atmosphere and decoration Best Lisboa destination!

Very cool atmosphere. Pretty chill. Went with my friend and drank and listened to jazz. Would recommend the mojito it was very good!! Would go back.