Chef Kiko Martins’ restaurant in Lisbon: a journey between shores with Alejandro Cateto at the helm

The project bears the signature of Cateto Cateto, the studio led by Alejandro Sánchez “Cateto.” The story originates from a journey the chef took along the Portuguese coast —a salty, luminous route filled with nuances— which the studio transforms into a spatial language. From that inspiration, the interior designer composes a scenography that translates the Atlantic essence into material, color, and atmosphere. The result is a place where visitors feel they are aboard a voyage between Portuguese beaches and the shores of Rio de Janeiro, between memory and the promise of the horizon.

The entire envelope is resolved in wood, surrounding diners with a warmth that recalls the cabins of a sailing vessel. Alongside it, white and blue tiles evoke the Portuguese spirit, while the patterns on the cushions echo the sensual curves of the Carioca beaches. The silhouettes of sails and sailors that frame the space make the sea the true symbolic protagonist.

Light brings a poetic gesture: the Dipping Light lamps by Marset, suspended as if hanging from fishing rods, multiply in the windows at dusk, turning into setting suns that bathe the space in golden reflections. A luminous choreography that accompanies the transition between day and night, between flavor and emotion.

Thanks to its interior design, El Mar becomes an immersive narrative. Every element —texture, color, shadow— engages in dialogue with Kiko Martins’ cuisine, weaving a shared story between the Atlantic and the Tropics. A project where design and gastronomy share creativity, embarking together on a voyage between two shores that meet at the table.

The interior design by Cateto Cateto moves through empathy, roots, and encounters —a story that touches emotion, where the South becomes universal. In Lisbon, under the changing light of the ocean, El Mar confirms that Alejandro Sánchez has found his own way of sailing: with wood as his vessel, light as his horizon, and emotion as his helm.

Project: Restaurante El Mar del chef Kiko Martins.

Location: Lisboa. El Corte Inglés.

Interior design: Cateto Cateto.
Creative director: Alejandro Sánchez.
Project team: Daniel Rodríguez Pérez, Cristian de los Reyes García.
Contract project specialist: Tailoring Deco.
Client: Comer o Mundo.

Completion: 2025.
Photography: Ricardo Oliveira Alves.

Source: Cateto Cateto.

Alejandro Sánchez “Cateto”

Alejandro Sánchez, who signs his work as Alejandro Cateto, has turned this word—so often used and so often misunderstood—into a symbol of identity and tenderness. “Cateto,” reclaiming origin, land, and a way of seeing the world from the South. Hence also the name of his studio: Cateto Cateto, a double echo that embraces both the local and the global.

Born in El Viso del Alcor, in the Sevillian countryside, Alejandro trained at the School of Art of Seville, where he was part of the first graduating class in Interior Design. After his early experience in renowned studios such as Teresa Sapey Studio in Madrid and El Equipo Creativo in Barcelona, he found his own tone: a warm, tactile, and empathetic language, where color, light, and memory merge to create atmospheres filled with humanity.

The origins of Cateto Cateto date back to the uncertain days of the pandemic. That suspended time brought him back to his roots and allowed him to shape his own studio—a place where he develops his vision of design based on honesty, closeness, and respect for the territory. For Alejandro, design is always an act of empathy. Whether it is a tavern in his homeland, an intimate home, or a restaurant in the heart of a large city, each space is built upon listening: to the client, to the place, to time itself.

Alejandro Cateto belongs to a new generation of interior designers who do not seek to impose a style, but to build a way of seeing. His work moves with an Andalusian accent, a Mediterranean rhythm, and a universal sensitivity. In his hands, interior design becomes storytelling, and each space, a poem where roots and modernity coexist with effortless grace.

Today, Alejandro leads his studio from Andalusia with an international outlook, developing projects and cross-border collaborations. His name—“Cateto” reinvented—is a reminder that origin can deepen one’s vision rather than limit it.

Project by Alejandro Sánchez “Cateto”