The Village Cafe was filmed using the courtyard of the Salutation Restaurant and Ship Shop, known today as Y Llong.

Despite repeated claims that it was based on the town of Portofino, Italy, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis,
Portmeirion's designer, denied this, stating only that he wanted to pay tribute to the atmosphere of the Mediterranean.
He did, however, draw from a love of the Italian village stating,
"How should I not have fallen for Portofino?
Indeed its image remained with me as an almost perfect example of the man-made adornment and use of an exquisite site..."

Williams-Ellis designed and constructed the village between 1925 and 1975.
He incorporated fragments of demolished buildings,
including works by a number of other architects. Portmeirion's architectural bricolage
and deliberately fanciful nostalgia have been noted as an
influence on the development of postmodernism
in architecture in the late twentieth century.