The Houses of Fado (Casas de Fado) now live in restaurants as live music for tourists, but are still crucial to keep the song alive. As are taverns,wherever there’s a guitar and the will to sing.
There is a number of things in which people agree about the invention of FADO, its origins going from homesick sailors in the age of Discoveries (15th and 16th centuries) to simple sadness and longing of what was lost, including things that were never gained in all ages of portuguese history. Nowadays, only in music festivals can you listen in the street to great singers of FADO. The houses of FADO (CASAS de FADO) have been in order for decades and still are one of the most looked after attraction in Lisbon.
Unlike a ‘house of anything else’, the houses of FADO are not technically places where there’s nothing else going on but the FADO itself. In most cases, we’re talking restaurants of different shapes and ambitions, aiming at different costumers. There are simply too many things you have to do to listen to FADO. In some houses, you can be charged extra for the music, while paying for drinks and food along the way, but the prices are nothing when compared with the ‘mood’ of FADO.
As in a password, the Portuguese demand for complete silence when guitar and voice come together. ‘Be quiet: FADO is about to be sung’ (silêncio, que se vai cantar o FADO’), as tourists tend to be warned. In Lisbon, Bairro Alto holds the most famous and ancient of all houses of FADO like A Severa, O Faia, Café Luso or Adega Machado, in Alfama shines the portuguese soul at A Parreirinha de Alfama and the Sé neighborhood enjoys the favours of Clube de Fado.
But beyond these places, many times given to an atmosphere of luxury according to their own acception of what is supposed to be typical, small restaurants and popular taverns across town or popular neighborhood societies have their regular amateur nights. Amid a snack, you never know which singers can come through the door and who’s the guitarist that follows them.
Last but not least, to know all about FADO the MUSEU DO FADO (Fado’s museum) in old Alfama is a mandatory stop.
Best Of Fado Houses
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