About the House
Where we began
Welcome Company Interiors opened in 2019 inside a former pastry workshop on Rua das Flores, two blocks from the Mercado do Bolhão. Founders Inês Carvalho and Tomás Mendes met while restoring a Ribeira ground-floor unit whose ceiling beams still carried soot from nineteenth-century roasting hearths.
They kept the studio small on purpose: four designers, one model-maker, and a chalkboard wall where every commission starts as a rough floor plan before any CAD file exists.
What we actually do
We produce interior concepts for cafés, wine bars, and daytime dining rooms — never kitchen operations, staffing, or licensing. Clients receive layout drawings, finish schedules, lighting intent, and furniture specifications sized to Porto building constraints.
Most of our work sits within the UNESCO buffer zone, where façade changes require sensitivity and interior interventions must respect granite party walls.
House Rules
- Measure twice before specifying built-in joinery — historic door frames in Baixa rarely match standard widths.
- Never paste azulejo panels as decoration alone; pattern must relate to room proportion and natural light direction.
- Design for the damp season: specify finishes that tolerate Atlantic humidity without warping within two winters.
- Keep counter heights consistent between espresso machine zone and pastry display so staff movement stays fluid.
- Present three material directions minimum — clients in Porto often hesitate between granite honesty and painted plaster warmth.
- Document sight lines from the street before finalising window banquette depth; Ribeira foot traffic is part of the room.
The team today
Inês leads spatial planning and municipal liaison. Tomás handles lighting and acoustic coordination with local electricians. Rita Ferreira sources Portuguese timber through a joinery cooperative in Gondomar, and Miguel Sousa builds physical scale models when digital renders fail to convey narrow-room proportions.
Together they have completed twenty-three café interior concepts across Cedofeita, Miragaia, and the Foz waterfront — always as design deliverables, never as operating businesses.