Unmapped Gems
A BrasileiraA Brasileira, Lisbon
CaféLisbonPortugal

A Brasileira

Best time
A bica at the counter, early in the morning
Getting there
On Rua Garrett in Chiado, by the Baixa-Chiado metro station

Why it’s in the log

A Brasileira opened in 1905 as a shop importing and selling Brazilian coffee — hence the name — and became one of the oldest and best-known cafés in Lisbon's old quarter. In the 1920s it was where the city's intellectuals, artists and writers met, and Fernando Pessoa was one of them.

He is still here: a bronze statue of Pessoa sits at a table beside the terrace.

The terrace is the tourist end of things. For the café as it was meant to be used, stand at the counter inside and order a bica, Lisbon's espresso.

Also logged in Lisbon

All of Lisbon →
A Ginjinha
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A Ginjinha

Lisbon, Portugal

A standing-room-only cherry liqueur bar near Rossio, pouring ginjinha since 1840.

Mentioned alongside

Lisbon
City

Lisbon

Seven hills, and the good ones are the ones without a tram stop.

Part of

The Best Bars and Cafés Where Writers Drank
Literary

The Best Bars and Cafés Where Writers Drank

Eleven rooms with a literary past — Pessoa in bronze outside his Lisbon café, Dylan Thomas's New York bar, Borges in a Buenos Aires basement, and the London pub that invented its Samuel Johnson.