Portofino Dining Chair

Designed by Jamela Alawneh for Melaaura, the Portofino dining chair is an outdoor seat that asks more of the dining table it surrounds and of the terrace it belongs to. Part of the Portofino collection, Melaaura’s most comprehensive outdoor range to date, it brings the same material intelligence, artisanal weave, and considered proportions that define the full collection to the most used and most scrutinised piece in any outdoor dining arrangement.

Each chair is hand-woven from continuous lengths of synthetic cord wound over a powder-coated aluminium frame in a tight, interlocking pattern that gives the body and backrest their quietly textured character. The weave is dense without being heavy, precise without being cold, a rhythm of interlocking loops that catches and shifts with the light across the hours, lending the surface a visual life that flat or moulded alternatives simply cannot replicate. Under direct sun, the cord retains its matte warmth without the artificial sheen that lesser synthetic materials betray; in shade, it holds its depth and character with equal composure.

The finish throughout is the collection’s signature warm greige, sun-resistant, matte, and possessed of a natural warmth that reads as genuinely material rather than simulated. The braided crown edge at the top of the backrest is the piece’s most deliberate detail: a seam where function and craft converge, and where the hand of the maker remains visible in an otherwise restrained and architectural form. Four slender legs lift the frame with an easy lightness, keeping the silhouette open and unencumbered from every angle, a quality that makes the chair feel as resolved from the side and rear as it does from the front.

The slightly reclined backrest offers the kind of support that encourages you to stay a little longer than planned. Not a lounging chair, but not a chair that hurries you either,it occupies the precise middle ground that outdoor dining demands, where comfort and composure must coexist across a meal that extends naturally into an evening. Paired with a cushion in a complementary outdoor fabric, the comfort deepens without disrupting the clean visual line.

Available in six weave colorways; Sage Green, Black, Natural Honey Teak, Ivory, Dark Brown, and Taupe, the Portofino dining chair adapts readily across a wide range of outdoor aesthetics, from contemporary minimalist terraces and poolside dining settings to warmer, more naturalistic garden environments. It is designed to live within a larger composition: arranged around the Portofino dining table, mixed with other pieces from the Portofino collection, or used as the anchoring element around which the rest of an outdoor dining setting is curated.

At Niche Beverly, we carry the Portofino collection as part of our curated selection of the world’s finest luxury outdoor furniture. Visit our Los Angeles showroom or contact us to discuss colorways, cushion options, and lead times for your project.