The Majestic is a historic café, located on Rua de Santa Catarina, in Porto, Portugal.
Its relevance derives both from the cultural ambience that surrounds it, namely the tradition of the café tertulia, where were several personalities of the cultural and artistic life of the city, as well as of its architecture of identity Arte Nova. In 2011, it was considered the sixth most beautiful coffee in the world.
Inaugurated on December 17, 1921, with the name of “Elite”, coffee, located at 112 Rua de Santa Catarina, was associated with a certain frequency of people different from the time. One of those present at the inauguration was the pilot aviator Gago Coutinho, just arrived from a trip to the island of Madeira, and was delighted by the splendor of the new art décor.
The following year the name would change from Elite to Majestic, suggesting the chic Parisian, more to meet the clientele that was intended to attract, and so appreciated at the time.
They attended the café names like Teixeira de Pascoaes, José Régio, António Nobre, the philosopher Leonardo Coimbra. Later it became a place for the students and professors of the School of Fine Arts of Porto.
Another of the well-known figures that animated it was the sculptor José Rodrigues and the painters Armando Alves, Ângelo de Sousa and Jorge Pinheiro. This group would, due to the final classification of the course, adopt the ironic name of “The four vintes”, and would remain united in a series of exhibitions in Porto,Lisbon and Paris in the period 1968–1971.
In recent years, among many other figures, the presidents Mário Soares, Jorge Sampaio, Jacques Chirac and Cavaco Silva also visited and signed the book of honor. Nowadays it continues to be animated with recitals of poetry, concerts of piano, expositions of painting, launches of books, realization of some scenes for national or foreign films. One of the Macau farewell ceremonies at the end of the Portuguese administration period took place at Café Majestic with the presence of the Chinese Ambassador in Portugal.
