The People Who Make Lisbon Lisbon: A Portrait of Mouraria

Every city has the version of itself it shows to visitors and the version it shows to people who live there. In Mouraria, these two versions have been in direct competition for about fifteen years and the outcome is still being decided.

The Mouraria I grew up in was a neighbourhood of Portuguese working families, Cape Verdean immigrants, and a Chinese community that had built a significant commercial presence around the Martim Moniz square (Praça Martim Moniz, Mouraria). It was not wealthy. It was not considered desirable. It was considered the neighbourhood you drove through to get somewhere else.

The renewal started in the early 2010s and has not stopped. The Intendente square was renovated. Art installations appeared on walls. A craft beer bar opened, then a natural wine bar, then a boutique hotel. The neighbourhood that nobody wanted became the neighbourhood everybody wanted, which is the specific Lisbon story of the last decade told in one postcode.

What survived the transformation: the Cape Verdean community in the streets around Rua do Benformoso (Rua do Benformoso, Mouraria), who run restaurants and music venues that have been there longer than any of the new arrivals. The Tasca do Chico (tascadochico.pt — Rua do Diário de Notícias 39), which is in Bairro Alto but belongs to the Fado world that Mouraria created. My grandmother, who still lives two streets from where I was born, and who has watched all of this with the specific patience of someone who has seen change come and go before.

The neighbourhood is not what it was. It is also still itself, in ways that the renovation has not yet reached. That margin is where the real city lives.