Quiosque Vermelho

Quiosque Vermelho has reopened very recently and it has more to offer.

Click here to read the whole post.

Pipa Velha

Pipa Velha was the first bar of downtown Oporto.

Click here to read the whole post in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

Video: Guarany

Do you still remember Guarany we talked about on our second post? The team A Coffee In Oporto went back to this emblematic café and restaurant to make a video where every reader can get to know more thoroughly this space. 

We hope you like it and feel tempted to visit!

Café Aviz

 In Portuguese and Spanish below

Placed in the heart of town, in a street with its name (Avis Street), Café Aviz é one of the landmarks of our city, not just for its five decades of existence, but also for the renowned francesinhas.

This dish is the highlight of the historical café, since the francesinha that's served here is seen by many as one of the best in the city. This coffee shop offers the possibility to taste this typical meal from Oporto in a calm and comforting on the inside as well as on the outside, in an outdoor space facing the Avis Street, which despite of being in the heart of the city is a secondary street with little circulation.

Café Aviz is also a nice place to have lunch or dinner with some friends. The game room, with pool tables, is one of the contributing factors to an agreeable socialization.

Besides being a restaurant and a coffee shop, Aviz is also a tearoom for what you can enjoy a relaxing moment, followed by a cup of tea on tables that inspire history and tradition.

Café Velasquez

In Portuguese and Spanish below

Open since 1995 and recently remodeled, retrieving its beauty. Placed on the old Velasquez’ square, now called Dr. Francisco Sá Carneiro’s square, it ended up adopting the name of the famous Spanish painter.

Café Velasquez, part of the affective and cultural part of Oporto, is known as a generation meeting point.

Architect José Saldenha, the responsible for the restructuring of several spaces, tried to inculcate a new image without sallow the habits that a coffee shop with old traditions has.

The idea became reality, being able to turn a uncharacterized space in a combination of light, color and textures. In a preexisting space characterized by irregular geometry, the emotions of its environment cause multiple perspectives.

The café has a tobacco shop, and its esplanade is very busy during the summer. Given the location of the Estádio do Dragão, on game days the café is invaded by sports lovers before and after the match.

Address: Praça do Dr. Francisco Sá Carneiro, 301, 4200-314 Porto

Il Caffè di Roma

 In Portuguese and Spanish below

Il Caffè di Roma was born in Spain in 1994, with the goal to offer a model of traditional cafeteria in a warm, welcoming and typically italian environment. In 1998 the chain oppened its first space in Portugal. In 1999, Lavazza bought the chain to boost its concept and turn it into the lider on exportation of the perfect italian espresso, making Il Caffè di Roma one of the italian coffee shops of excellency.

Il Caffè de Roma presents a unique athmosphere, evoking the italian tradition of a coffee place as a meeting point. To taste an espresso in Il Caffè di Roma is a ritual to live with every sense, relishing each detail: the relaxing and familiar environment involving  hot colors and the scent and flavour of the authentic italian espresso.

At Il Caffè di Roma you'll be granted the experience of a special break, completely italian, and try delicious specialties besides the espresso: from the classic recipies to the most innovative ones, exclusively created and ready to be discovered,

Besides all of this, it presents a huge variety of delicious products to assure a consumption suggestion in every moment of the day.

Il Caffè di Roma covers the values of friendship, heat, spontaneity, proximity, familiarity and amicability typical of the italian culture.

The brand Il Caffè di Roma has a well defined personality and presents itself as a traditional place, as well as informal, inviting, balanced, accessible and comfortable, where the costumer feels completely at ease.

Café Ceuta

 In Portuguese and Spanish below

The Ceuta cafe was born in the 50's and it still stands today as a landmark in the Invicta. Placed near Clérigos, this cafe offers a joyful service and it's open until 2 am from monday to saturday.

This cafe is the place to hang out with some friends or even stay for a meal, where the highlights are some typically portuguese dishes like tripas and francesinhas or even others like Duck rice. When it comes to drinks, sangria is the most famous one there.

Aside from the gastronomic features, in the Ceuta cafe you can enjoy a nice pool game, domino, checkers or chess.
The decoration reflects the time of its birth, it has friezes of fresco painting by Coelho de Figueiredo, marmorite's pavement with gaskets and marble wainscotings.

It's one of those places you must visit if you're trying to know more about the history of the city. Besides, the food is typical and amazing.

Astória

In Portuguese and Spanish below

The Astória café was born in the previously called Palácio das Cardosas, downtown. This former palace was remodeled and gave place to the InterContinental Hotel, a luxury hotel that combines history and modernism.

The café area is in the ground floor and already has a centenary history. Astória was recovered so it could reflect the same refinement and charm of the InterContinental Hotel.

Besides the café, Astória also has a restaurant with a Portuguese cuisine and a menu that reflects our country’s culture like leitão, pão de ló de Ovar or even Port wine. This dishes can be found in the Astória or in your home thanks to the take away service.

There are two available menus during the week: the Express Menu for 10€, with the main dish, a drink and one coffee, as well as the Astoria Menu for 17,50€ with the option of an entrée or desert, the main dish, drink and also coffee.

This is a café you must visit so you can know a little more about the historical center of Oporto, where you can enjoy a nice cup of coffee in an atmosphere that takes us back to the 18^th century.

Âncora D'ouro | Piolho

In Portuguese and Spanish below

The mandatory stopping place in a Thursday night

Ancora D'ouro is a name that a few recognize, but Piolho Café is a landmark of Porto, mainly between university students. No-one knows how its name appeared, making everyone forgot its real name, but there are a lot of theories.

One of them tells that the café was always full, it was impossible to go inside and it was said that people looked like lice, because they were so many. Others tells that Piolho was a space of gathering not only for students, but also for professors, making an atmosphere a bit ceremonial, which people gave the name of "piolhice". 

Theories apart, Piolho is frequently the meeting place before an academic night, it’s where the night begins. But also during the day there are a lot of students there, in the esplanade for a snack or for just a coffee between friends. The Café is a part of the city’s history, mostly regarding to academic life, how we can see in its walls, full of memories of the different courses of Porto University.

O Guarany

In Portuguese and Spanish below

Founded in 1933, the Guarany Café, better known as the “musician’s café”, stands out for having a very special atmosphere, result of the commitment between the tradition, the quality service and the artistic spirit which from early marked its existence. This was always a space of gathering and culture. After an improvement that occurred in 2003, Guarany offers a singular space, where the organization of events remains constant. Café Guarany is a restaurant and a historical café, located in Aliados Avenue, in downtown Oporto, Portugal. 

Integrated in an outbreak opening of cafes in Oporto in the middle of 1930, in January 29th 1933, Café Guarany opened, as a project of the architect Rogério Azevedo, with decoration of the sculptor Henrique Moreira. One of the walls now shows paintings of Graça Morais. The decoration reminds guarany Indians of Southern America and its tropical invocation is allusive to Brazil of the 20th century as the first coffee producer. 

Events

Café Guarany is by tradition a space of gathering and culture. Given that organizing events is a constant part of the café, you’re free to know more about the program and see the album of past events if you just click here. 

Specialties 

Codfish Guarany’s style, Sea bass baron Brise’s style, Shrimp Stroganoff, Hake fillets Salesman’ style, Marget of duck with Tawny Porto, Sirloin Guarany’ style, Veal steak Mirandesa’ style, Sirloin skewer with barbecue sauce. Besides this gastronomy, Guarany has several qualities of wine, created by its cupbearer. 

O Majestic

In Portuguese and Spanish below

The splendor of the “Belle Époque”

In December 17th 1921, the architect João Queirós opened a luxurious café called Elite, in Santa Catarina Street, the most central place of the city. More than a café, Majestic tells the story of Oporto in the 20’s, of politic clubs and debates. Oporto of the “Belle Époque”, of writers and artists. Majestic illuminated the sidewalk with its New Art decoration.

That was the day of the inauguration. There were many people who went to that point of town only to see the splendid new building that had just joined the architectural landscape of Oporto. It pleased not only intellectuals and vagrants, but also ladies of the high society that took there their tea or their ice-cream.

Although the opening was a success, the name of the building gave him a monarchical aura that didn’t match with the republican, bourgeois and chic environment. The glamour and Parisian cultural elite were references to the Portuguese culture back then, having influenced the choice of the new name – Majestic – full of ‘’Belle Époque’s” charm. 

In a place that is art by self-merit, students and teachers of Belas Artes’ School of Oporto and artists like Júlio Resende would get together to break new grounds and artistic motivations, to propose ruptures, to criticize formalisms, conceptualizing new ways or simply to hear what was said then. 

The Majestic Café, inspired in Marques da Silva’s work, remains till today as one of the most beautiful and representative examples of New Art in Oporto. The building, founded in 1916 in Santa Catarina Street with Passos Manuel Street, predicted the existence of establishments facing the pedestrian street. The imposing marble façade, with aspects of sinuous forms, shows the good decorative style of the time. Three elegant frontispieces mark the façade, limited by a rectangular section, torn in glass. On top, a fronton caps the composition with the initials of Majestic. Two children side its name that, in an amusing way, invite the client to go in. 

Inside the café the decoration is New Art. The symmetry of the curved wooden frames and the decorative details catch the attention. Big mirrors marked by the time, intercalated with lamps of worked metal, set out the walls in an intelligent optic game of amplitude, which gives a bigger dimension than it really is. Stucco sculptures, representing human faces, denuded figures and big flowers, confirm the sensual taste, while two lines of embossed leather seats replacing the originals in red velvet create a sensation of deep and elegant coziness. 

The sinuous border of the mirrors’ frames, lamps’ luminosity, the details in marble and cheerful busts, which extend from the walls to the ceiling, give the café a golden and comfortable ambience, instigating to rest and small talk. Majestic emanates an atmosphere of luxury, refinement and welfare. 

The inside terrace, built in 1925, is a corner with delicate outlines, with a small ladder and with a small balustrade, built like as if it was a winter garden. Under the direction of Pedro Mendes da Silva, this space represents a new era for Majestic. The construction of the bar and the connection to the café through a staircase allowed to open a new front to Passos Manuel Street, "…where will be put for sale port wine. For that, we picked the regional style of our architecture, not only to the construction of the bar, but also to barrier of the wall". The new front was subsequently idealized and executed following different molds of those used inside. If this is the international taste, the new space, without rejecting it, presents a new style, more rustic, expressing what later Raul Lino called “Portuguese home”. 

The numerous awards and the international recognition - "Prémio Especial de Café Creme" (1999), "Medalha de Prata de Mérito Turístico" (2000), "Medalha de Prata de Mérito Municipal - Porto" (2006), "Certificado do Prémio Mercúrio – O melhor do Comércio na área das empresas na categoria Lojas com História" (2011) and "Medalha Municipal Mérito – Grau Ouro" (2011), classified by Cityguides website as the 6th more beautiful café of the world and the Excellency Certificated of TripAdvisor – appeared with simplicity, giving it finally the fair prestige that for a long time had been forgotten.