Chiado and A Brasileira

You are in Chiado, Lisbon's elegant, literary quarter. If someone is sitting next to the bronze statue on the terrace having their photo taken, you know exactly where you are: outside A Brasileira.

1Coffee from Brazil

On 19 November 1905, Adriano Telles, who had made his fortune in coffee in Brazil, opened a shop here selling Brazilian coffee. In 1908 he turned it into a café. According to the house, this is where the word bica, Lisbon's name for an espresso, was born.

After the Republic was proclaimed, A Brasileira filled with literary circles. The young writers of the magazine Orpheu, which launched Portuguese modernism in 1915, met here, Fernando Pessoa and Almada Negreiros among them. In 1925 the café hung paintings by modern artists on its walls: it became almost a small museum.

2The bronze poet

The statue of Pessoa, by Lagoa Henriques, was installed in 1988, the centenary of his birth. That same year, on 25 August, a fire devastated part of Chiado; the rebuilding was led by the architect Álvaro Siza.

A few steps away, on Largo do Chiado, another statue honours António Ribeiro, a sixteenth-century poet nicknamed ‘the Chiado’.

3What to look out for

• The façade of A Brasileira, with its Art Nouveau decoration.
• The Pessoa statue, with an empty chair so you can sit beside him.
• The two churches on Largo do Chiado, Loreto and Encarnação, facing each other.