About Harvest Cotton Tale

Harvest Cotton Tale is a creative hospitality advisory shaping hotels, restaurants, and experiences from the inside out.The firm is also the owner and majority partner of the Michelin-recognized Cavalariça Restaurant Group in Portugal. We work at the point where ideas become concepts — aligning culture, human behavior, and commercial intent to build places that feel grounded, coherent, and alive. Drawing from art, cuisine, music, and local craft, we help owners and operators move beyond monotony toward meaning — while maintaining operational discipline and economic clarity. What we build is not trend-led. It is culturally rooted, strategically conceived, and built to endure.

The Inspiration

Harvest Cotton Tale is rooted in the idea of origin, human craft, and cultural truth. The name draws from traditions where hospitality was not staged or scripted where local culture, foodways, space, and human presence were woven together naturally, shaped by place rather than performance. Meaning was created through participation, not spectacle.

Harvest

Harvest speaks to origin and stewardship understanding where a place begins, what it can become, and when to intervene versus when to let it evolve. It reflects a belief in cultivation over fabrication, and in shaping concepts with intention, patience, and long-term clarity rather than short-term effect.

Cotton

Cotton reflects the human hand a material shaped through care and craft, valued for how it feels rather than how it performs. It represents comfort without spectacle and luxury experienced quietly, through presence rather than display.

Tale

Tale is about memory not storytelling as narrative, but as emotional recall shaped by lived experience. It is the residue a place leaves behind when design, service, and atmosphere are aligned without being forced.

Together, they reflect our belief that meaningful hotels and restaurants are not assembled they are cultivated. We work upstream to define the intent, logic, and cultural framework that allow guests to craft their own journeys unforced, unscripted, deeply personal, and human.

What We Do

Harvest Cotton Tale is a creative hospitality advisory operating upstream of hotel and restaurant concepts and strategic hospitality advisory.

We specialize in the definition and development of hospitality concepts from early vision, positioning, and commercial logic through to launch alignment and operational readiness.

We work with owners, developers, and investors to define what is built before execution begins: the concept logic, guest intent, cultural grounding, service behavior, spatial purpose, and economic framework that guide every downstream decision.

Our role is not execution or design delivery it is authorship. We shape the strategic foundation that allows designers, architects, operators, and teams to work with clarity, coherence, and intent.

Our clients include hotel groups, real estate developers, private equity, and independent operators developing or repositioning luxury and boutique hospitality assets where long-term relevance, cultural integrity, and performance matter.

 

ABDUL BAAGHIL

Co-founder/ PRINCIPAL

Abdul Baaghil is a senior hospitality leader with over 30 years of experience operating, building, and guiding luxury hotels and restaurant groups across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and China.

His career began inside some of the world’s most established luxury hotel companies, holding senior operational roles including EAM, Hotel Manager, and Acting General Manager with Park Hyatt, St. Regis, The Ritz-Carlton, Fairmont, and MGM Resorts. This foundation shaped a deep understanding of large-scale luxury operations, service rigor, and commercial discipline.

Abdul later transitioned into ownership-side and executive leadership roles. He served as a Strategic Hospitality Advisor to ownership at Campbell Gray Hotels in Beirut, followed by Chief Executive Officer of OB Hotels, a hospitality subsidiary of Challenger Limited (now Tap Oil). There, he led the ground-up development and operation of culturally positioned boutique hotels across East and North Africa, totaling approximately 230 keys and consistently outperforming local luxury benchmarks in ADR and RevPAR.

He is the Founder and Principal of Harvest Cotton Tale, a hospitality concept development and strategic advisory working upstream of operations. The firm defines the intent, logic, and commercial framework of hotel and restaurant projects guiding owners, developers, and investors from early vision through launch and repositioning with clarity, coherence, and cultural depth.

Abdul is CEO and partner of the Michelin-recognized Cavalariça Restaurant Group. Under his leadership, the group expanded from a single restaurant in Comporta to five venues across Comporta, Évora, Lisbon, and Portugal’s North Coast, with two restaurants receiving Michelin recognition and the group recording its strongest financial performance to date.

He was educated at Les Roches Hotel Management School, Switzerland, and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from EU Business School, Montreux.

 

BRUNO CONTRERAS

Co-Founder/Chief culinary officer

Bruno Contreras is the well-rounded culinary mind behind the distinct restaurant concepts of Harvest Cotton Tale (hospitality group). His career started in the early nineties with numerous Michelin-starred restaurants across France, Italy, and Germany, including three Michelin star holder ‘L’Auberge de l’Ill’ and ‘Antica Osteria del Ponte.’ He was subsequently appointed Executive Chef at Relais & Châteaux and Small Luxury Hotels of the World affiliates. Acting as the Executive Chef at 5-star Hotel Monument Mas Passamaner, Contreras was in charge of Chef Joachim Koerper’s two Michelin-starred restaurant ‘La Gigantea.’ By joining forces with Chef Koerper, Contreras curated memorable culinary events in Portugal and Spain and was instrumental in the copywriting and photo shoot of Chef Koerper’s recipe book.

In 2013, restaurant concepts at Velaa Private Island were the brainchild of Contreras’ culinary excellence for Harvest Cotton Tale. In 2014, Contreras worked with Baaghil as Director of Culinary for OB Hotels Group, overseeing projects for boutique hotels in North and East Africa. Their shared passion and vision led to the founding of Harvest Cotton Tale Global Hospitality Group.