A fado house in Bairro Alto, since 1937
Three floors in Bairro Alto, exposed stone and a whole wall of people who have sung here since 1937.
Founded by Armando and Maria de Lurdes Machado in 1937. In the same room for ninety years.
Armando played the viola de fado — the acoustic guitar that lays down the chords. Maria de Lurdes, a fado singer. They opened the house in a small tavern on Rua do Norte. It first went by the name Barrete Verde. The name didn’t last long.
Adega Machado was the second fado house in Bairro Alto. It was the first to hold a performance every night.
Amália Rodrigues was family. Godmother to two of the five Machado children, she would come for late suppers after her sets at Café Luso. She felt at home and often sang for the pleasure of it. One night, carried by the moment, she stepped into the street leading a parade; the diners followed. The Bairro Alto police, mistaking the group for an unauthorised gathering, stopped them in their tracks.
Alfredo Marceneiro sang here for the last time; it was the last place he was ever under contract. Mariza began her career in this same room, at seven years old. Carlos do Carmo, Fernando Maurício, Beatriz da Conceição, Maria da Fé, Celeste Rodrigues — Amália’s sister, who kept singing here almost until she was ninety — and many other names the walls remember.
This is not a show. It is the house that receives those who come to sing. The line-up is chosen carefully, fado singer by fado singer. The nights are long, but they have their own rhythm: fado happens between courses, and the kitchen pauses when it begins.
Those who come to listen, stay silent. That is the rule of the house — and it is the only one.
Nobody hung this paintingThe main room · Rua do Norte, 91
to decorate the room.
It was here before the tables.
Three things stand the test of time in this house: the entrance panel, the collection covering the walls, and the room where fado is sung.
The tiled façade is by Thomaz de Mello — known as Tom — a Portuguese-Brazilian artist of the second modernist generation. He devoted the panel to Portuguese folk culture, fado, the Portuguese guitar and Lisbon itself. It is today a classified municipal heritage site.
More than a hundred photographs, paintings and caricatures from the Machado family collection fill the walls of the house. Each piece is a fragment of the history of fado — and of Lisbon — in the twentieth century.
The room was fully renovated in 2012, after three years of work. From the old house, only the façade and the collection remain. The rest is new. The place where people sing is still the same.
Fado begins at 20:30. The kitchen opens at 19:00. There are few tables, and evenings fill up well in advance.