Take a stroll in the busy downtown area of Baixa-Chiado, and you’ll notice there’s at least one café on every corner. Some split their clientele between regular customers and tourists looking for an affordable, quick bite at different times of the day.
There isn’t a specific time to have coffee in Lisbon (and the rest of Portugal), neither an etiquette rule that tells you when to grab a pastry with your espresso shot.
The first coffee shops in Lisbon, known as cafés, opened after the Great Earthquake of 1755. They were places where locals bought coffee (produced in Brazil, then a Portuguese colony) and a place where they caught up with the city’s latest news.
While planning the reconstruction of Lisbon, Prime-Minister Marquês de Pombal was adamant. He demanded that all commercial establishments needed to put up a sign clearly stating their business. The word café has, since then, been used for both the drink and the coffee house.
At the beginning of the 20th century, cafés in Lisbon became a place to discuss literature, politics, and social life. Later, during the dictatorship, they would harbor anti-regime activists who needed a safe and inconspicuous meeting place.
Café culture is deeply rooted in the daily routine of the Portuguese. We use the expression “let’s have coffee” as a way to say “let’s meet up.”
We may not be the greatest connoisseurs of coffee (nor even the world champions of coffee brewing), but I dare anyone in the world to compete with us when it comes to baking the perfect eggy, buttery, sugary pastry. (Okay, maybe we should exclude the French from this competition).