Café Majestic

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The entrance of the Café Majestic
In the Café Majestic
In front of the Majestic Café

The Café Majestic is a cafe in the northern Portuguese city of Porto from the late period of the Belle Époque .

history

In 1916 the building was built at number 112 in the Portuguese paved shopping street Rua de Santa Catarina . Café Elite opened here in 1921 and was designed in the Art Nouveau style. The city's bohemian at the time, however, did not consider the name appropriate, it did not correspond to the intellectual zeitgeist after the Portuguese Republic proclaimed in 1910 . The coffee house was subsequently given its current name under the lasting influence of the French Belle Époque . The guests included Gago Coutinho and Beatriz Costa , intellectuals such as Júlio Resende , José Régio , Teixeira de Pascoaes and Leonardo Coimbra frequented here.

In the 1960s, the café experienced a decline, parallel to the increasingly repressive social situation in Portugal under the authoritarian Estado Novo regime. In 1983 the Barrias family bought the café and it was listed as a historical monument.

Joanne K. Rowling stayed here a lot during her time in Porto in the early 1990s. She wrote the first chapters of the first Harry Potter book in Café Majestic .

It was not until 1992 that the Barrias family decided to extensively restore the café. The restoration was carried out according to old photographs and a new floor was laid. In 1994 the new opening followed.

With its ornate details, the chandeliers and the Art Nouveau mirror hall, in which a pianist occasionally plays, the Café Majestic is now one of the tourist attractions of the city of Porto. It has been a listed building since 1983.

Web links

Commons : Café Majestic  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lydia Hohenberger, Jürgen Strohmaier: Portugal. 2nd edition, DuMont Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 2009, p. 235
  2. ↑ www.cafemajestic.com , accessed February 23, 2013
  3. ^ Hans-Peter Burmeister: DuMont art travel guide: Portugal. 3rd edition, DuMont Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 2008, p. 246
  4. ↑ www.monumentos.pt , accessed on February 23, 2013

Coordinates: 41 ° 8 ′ 49.8 "  N , 8 ° 36 ′ 23.6"  W.