I remember the cafés I used to visit with my father.
On family trips, when we arrived in a city, my father (who always worked in the restaurant sector) would take us out to stroll through the historic centre and visit the tourist sights, where we would do some shopping and normally visit the best-known café in the place. If it was Lisbon or Porto, there was always a Brasileira or a Majestic in which to take a rest, after a walk through Chiado or Santa Catarina. And the same happened whether we were in Fundão, in Estremoz or in Évora.
Nowadays, I not only try to visit the historic centres of the places I pass through, but I also try to nd out in advance whether there are any notable cafés I can visit in each place I go.
These historic old cafés do not just have rich material heritage, visible in the internal architecture, more or less adapted to consumer demands, but they also possess magni cent intangible heritage. This sum of existences over many decades, thousands of clients, can be absorbed by frequenting these places and sitting there a while, drinking a co ee, reading a newspaper or book, or catching up with a good friend.
Some of these cafés mark the history of their country, their city and their region. Many continue to be points of reference, a focal point of public life where you can drink a co ee or join in a social gathering and enjoy discussing any subject, from football to politics.
In the days when ideas were not shared on the internet, they used to be thought, debated and often even put down on paper at the tables of these cafés. Many men and women sat and still sit in these places, discussing the problems of their time. But also as lovers, for business, to celebrate friendship, to write a song or a poem.
Many of these moments have marked our history and I believe they will continue to do so...
These “Historic Cafés”, over several generations, have managed to keep alive their tradition, their monumentality and their identity, never ceasing to embrace new concepts that appear.
They are cafés we can visit any day of the week in order to understand a bit more of their history, their evolution and their present-day activities.
The importance of “Historic Cafés” in our society is mentioned by George Steiner in The Idea of Europe - Gradiva (1st edition - September 2005), and by Stefan Zweig in The World of Yesterday – Memoriesofaeuropean-Assírio&Alvim(2ndEdition-August 2014). “The café is a place for assignation and conspiracy, for intellectual debate and gossip, for the âneur and the poet or metaphysician at his notebook. [...] A cup of co ee, a glass of wine, a tea with rum secures a locale in which to work, to dream, to play chess or simply keep warm the whole day.”- George Steiner.
“It is actually a sort of democratic club, open to everyone for the price of a cheap cup of co ee, where every guest can sit for hours after making this little o ering, in order to talk, write, play cards, receive mail and above all consume an unlimited number of newspapers and journals.” - Stefan Zweig.
It is as good being in a café today as it was ever was...
Vítor de Sá Marques
Co-owner of Café de Santa Cruz (Coimbra) Project Leader - Rota dos Cafés com História de Portugal
