patrícia furtado

I was expecting a seriously dull weekend. With most of my friends out of Lisbon or otherwise busy, I was in a mood for partying, but had no plans whatsoever. Then, out of the blue, a friend I hadn’t seen in ages came to my rescue, and I ended up having an awesome time, two nights in a row.

On Friday, we headed out to Bairro Alto for a girl’s night out, had dinner at Nood (a Wagamama taste-a-like) and merrily hopped from bar to bar drinking caipiroskas and gossiping like there was no tomorrow.

On Saturday, we went for something a bit calmer - or so we thought. We set out to discover Fábrica do Braço de Prata, a former factory now turned into a 13-room bookshop/bar/art gallery/music venue.

As we stepped into the first room, we found ourselves in a concert by Kasutera, a charming guitar-contrabass-percussion trio playing themes by Baden-Powell and Carlos Paredes in between their own originals. Beautiful. We only caught the last portion of the show, so I’ll be sure not to miss one of their upcoming gigs.

After wandering in a concert by the extremely funny “Os 3 Marias”, we ended up finding the room we were originally aiming for, where fado was being played. It was totally full, but we managed to spot an empty table at the front and squeezed in with a couple of nice strangers. We ended up having some laughs and drinks with them until closing time.

The fado was really good. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to find out the names of the fadistas. But I’m sure we’ll be hanging out at Braço de Prata quite often from now on, it’s a gorgeous space with a very warm and fun atmosphere and something for everybody. Great find, great fun, thanks Cat!