Lisbon’s cafés: a bica, a nata and three centuries at the counter

The story of Lisbon’s café life: the historic cafés of the Baixa and Chiado, the pastel de nata and its bakeries, and the new specialty roasters and brunch rooms, with a directory of the cafés in our guide.

Lisbon runs on small, strong coffee and warm custard tarts. Ask for a bica and you get a short espresso, drunk standing at the counter; pair it with a pastel de nata still warm from the oven, and you have the city’s breakfast, its mid-morning pause and, quite often, its afternoon too.

This is a short guide to the café life of the city: the grand old rooms where poets wrote, the bakeries that fight over the best nata, and the new wave of roasters and brunch cafés that has changed how a younger Lisbon starts its day.

The historic cafés

Under the arcades of the Praça do Comércio, Martinho da Arcada has served coffee since 1782, by its own account, which makes it the oldest café in the city. The poet Fernando Pessoa was a regular, and the café keeps his memory at the back of the room.

Up the hill in Chiado, A Brasileira is the city’s great Art Deco café: mirrors, carved wood and a long bar. Pessoa sits outside in bronze, at a café table, and half of Lisbon’s visitors sit down beside him for a photograph. Go in and stand at the bar instead: that is where the locals drink.

Confeitaria Nacional has stood on the Praça da Figueira since 1829, in its own words, the classic pastry shop of the Baixa; Landeau is the place for one perfect slice of chocolate cake.

The pastel de nata

The custard tart is Lisbon’s gift to the world. In Belém, Pastéis de Belém has baked beside the Jerónimos Monastery since 1837, in its own words, to an old recipe from the monastery, in blue-and-white tiled rooms. In the centre, Manteigaria makes nothing else, in batches, in sight of the counter, so they are always warm.

Aloma has baked its natas since 1943, by its own account, with shops in Campo de Ourique and across the city. Eat them warm, with a dusting of cinnamon and sugar, and never from a box that has waited an hour.

In Lisbon a coffee is a short, strong bica, taken standing at the counter in a minute flat.

The new roasters

In the last decade a younger café culture has grown up beside the old one. Fábrica Coffee Roasters has roasted in Lisbon since 2015; Hello Kristof pours specialty coffee in small rooms in São Bento, Bica and Alfama; The Folks has six cafés and its own roastery.

Brunch, once unknown here, is now a Lisbon habit: Dear Breakfast opened its first café in São Bento in 2017 and serves breakfast all day from 8am. Expect queues at weekends, and a laptop-free table if you go early.

How to order

A bica is a short espresso; a café pingado comes with a drop of milk; a galão is a tall milky coffee in a glass, the Lisbon answer to the latte. Coffee at the counter is quicker and often cheaper than at a table, and nobody minds if you stay only a minute.

Our advice

Our advice: start one morning at Martinho da Arcada, have a nata warm in Belém after the monastery, and keep a specialty café for the afternoon. Stand at the bar like a Lisboeta, and order your coffee by its Lisbon name.