The catch at The Ivens

The Capelo King and the Capelo Twin, the entry categories, are 22 square metres on the hotel's own booking pages, sleep two and take no rollaway bed. The Ivens Balcony is the same 22 with a small balcony added. After that the ladder climbs by floor area: 30 for the Superior, 35 for the Premium, 50 for the suites.

What the rooms look at is the other half of it. The hotel's rooms page promises every room a view of the city or the river, but when it describes each category it is more careful: the Ivens Balcony overlooks the city, the Premium rooms face the city centre, and the Capelo, spread over all five floors, is promised tranquillity and no outlook at all. The panoramic view of the city and the Tagus comes from the private terraces of the two Signature Suites on the top floor, and no other category is sold with it.

Rocco, the restaurant on the ground floor, keeps its own hours rather than the hotel's. Its own site gives every one of its spaces a close of one in the morning, seven days a week: the Ristorante's evening sitting from 19:30, the Crudo Bar and the Terrazza from 12:30, and the Gastrobar from 10:30, where a DJ plays vinyl to the room. It has its own street door at Rua Ivens 14, and the hotel's own FAQ says its restaurants are open to the public, so the evening crowd is the city's rather than the hotel's.

The hotel's own food page calls the Ristorante noisy, and means it as praise. Guests on the lower floors report that the noise carries, and that weekends are the worst of it. The Ivens Balcony, our pick, adds a door onto the outside, which is worth having on a high floor and a liability on a low one.

Rocco is not the hotel's dining room in the usual sense. It is run by Plateform, a Lisbon restaurant group, with its own reservations, its own events team and its own terms: tables are held on a card, and a no-show or a cancellation inside three hours costs 25 euros a head at lunch or dinner and 15 at breakfast. Its own guidance sends diners to the public car park on Largo Boa Hora, because the hotel's garage is for residents only.

That split is the likely reason behind a complaint that turns up in guest reports: that bar and restaurant staff favour outside diners. Guests also report that the hotel side feels chain-standard rather than personal when the building is full.

The hotel's booking pages list breakfast as available at Rocco for a fee, and Rocco's own breakfast menu prices it at 42 euros a person: a buffet of bread and pastry, a hot drink and a juice, and eggs, pancakes or porridge cooked to order, from 6:30 to 10:30. For two people over three nights that is 252 euros, before the 19 euro caviar supplement the same menu offers.

Lisbon adds its own charge. The city's tourist tax is 4 euros per guest per night for everyone aged 13 and over, up to seven nights, collected by the hotel and itemised on the bill. Parking in the building is a paid extra on the room categories; only the suite pages offer the valet free, with conditions.

The hotel's own list of what it has runs to a restaurant, a bar, a private car park, a meeting room and a gym open 24 hours. There is no pool and no spa, although the prose on the same page has its explorers passing each other in the spa, and the only on-site facility the booking pages list is the fitness centre. Rocco's Terrazza, an inner garden laid out like an Italian courtyard, is a dining room open to the public rather than a residents' garden.

With rooms starting at 22 square metres and no residents' lounge on that list, there is nowhere to be at three in the afternoon except your room or a table you pay for, downstairs or down the street. Guests report missing a pool, a garden or a lounge at this price.