Introducing Kenoa

As temperatures fall, here’s an idea that might lift your spirits: Kenoa, a new eco-chic resort in Alagoas, a stunning under-the-radar corner of Brazil’s Nordeste.


What’s unusual about Kenoa isn’t simply the style of the place — it’s the conjunction if its sleek, high-design style and its location, on the far east coast of the state of Alagoas, tucked in between the forest and the Atlantic. This isn’t exactly boutique-hotel country, and Kenoa wins points for breaking new ground — and, it must be said, for providing efficient, highly trained service in a part of the country that’s not exactly full of trained hotel-industry veterans.

It bills itself as an “eco-chic” resort, which we’ll grant is true enough, even if we’re not eager to coin it as a category. The idea is easy enough to grasp — these days style and sustainability are more often complements than competing virtues. Anyway, what’s chic about Kenoa is relatively low-key, its exterior making the most of indigenous wood and stone, its interiors mixing rough-hewn stone and ultra-rustic furnishings with modern fixtures and electronics and crisp minimalist lines.

The spa goes above and beyond, with the sort of high-gloss presentation you’d expect to see in a much larger luxury hotel. And it’s not all an exercise in pure desert-island seclusion — the restaurant and wine bar are something of a local attraction in their own right, serving traditional regional specialties with a touch of Portuguese influence.

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