Café A Brasileira (Lisbon)

Fernando Pessoas statue in front of the Brasileira

The Café A Brasileira is a café in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon from the late period of the Belle Époque . It is located at number 120 on the well-known Rua Garrett , in the Chiado district and is considered the birthplace of Bica , the typical Portuguese variant of espresso .

history

The pharmacist Adriano Soares Teles do Vale , who comes from Alvarenga in northern Portugal and works in Porto , grandfather of the filmmaker Luís Galvão Teles , had already emigrated to Brazil as a young man, where he had become rich as a trader and coffee producer at the end of the 19th century. When his wife fell ill, he returned with her to Porto in 1903, where she died a little later. Here he turned to creating points of sale for his Brazilian coffee, which he called Casa Brasileira or A Brasileira .

The Café A Brasileira in 1911 (Photo by Joshua Benoliel )

Teles opened his first sales outlet in Porto in 1903, followed by Lisbon in 1905 (one in the Chiado district and one on Rossio), and he opened further branches in Coimbra, Braga, Aveiro and Seville, Spain.

In order to boost sales of the still relatively little-widespread coffee, he gave buyers a free cup of freshly brewed espresso in addition to a customer magazine. With the increasing popularity of his coffee, which is now widely used throughout the country as Bica , he expanded his Brasileira sales outlets into coffee houses under the uniform name of Café A Brasileira , including his Chiado sales point in 1908, the now known Café A Brasileira on Rua Garrett.

The café in Chiado increasingly became a focal point for intellectuals who worked and frequented the surrounding publishing houses, editorial offices and bookshops, especially since the upswing in intellectual life in connection with the emerging First Portuguese Republic (proclaimed on October 5, 1910 in Porto). When it was renovated in 1922/23 , the café received some works by artists who frequent the area , such as Almada Negreiros or Stuart Carvalhais . Among the regulars was Fernando Pessoa , along with a number of other writers from the Orpheu area , who is commemorated by a bronze statue in front of the café by Lagoa Henriques , which was inaugurated on his 100th birthday in 1988.

A number of works of art were sold from 1969 onwards and some of them are now hanging in Portuguese museums. In 1971 the café was renovated and received artwork by contemporary painters to replace the earlier works. In 1993 the café was again extensively restored.

Café A Brasileira, like the entire section of Rua Garrett numbers 102 to 122, has been a listed building since 1997.

The café is now a tourist attraction in the city, and the famous Fernando Pessoas statue in particular is a particularly popular photo opportunity for visitors to Lisbon.