Macabéa Café, in Vila Buarque, pays homage to literature on the menu and decoration

In her latest book, “A Hora da Estrela”, Clarice Lispector created a fictional narrator to tell the story of Macabéa, a 19-year-old woman from Alagoas who lives in Rio de Janeiro. Poor and sad, the young migrant ends up being run over by a Mercedes-Benz while a crowd watched her bleed to death.

The character served as an inspiration not only to christen the literary cafeteria, but also the Find of the house: a coffee that, in the hot version, has brown sugar syrup and cumaru steamed with milk and espresso; the cold version is made with cold brew, cold milk and the same syrup —but it stays at the bottom of the glass and is mixed to the customer’s taste. Each recipe costs BRL 14.

Living up to its literary vocation, the establishment has a bookcase with a small library and an armchair for those who want to enjoy the books while waiting for the order to be ready. “I worked in bookstores and in other areas of the publishing market, that’s why the theme. The books that are on display are from my personal collection and, for those from the neighborhood, we even end up lending them. Just leave a book in place and, after reading it, take it back”, explains Ricardo Silva, 42, one of the partners in the project inaugurated in 2019.

In the salon, which can hold up to 20 people, the client finds, at the entrance, a panel with an excerpt from the book “Forever yours, Caio F.: letters, conversations, memories of Caio Fernando Abreu”, by writer Paula Dip, with who Abreu lived for 20 years. “In the bathroom, there are photo collages of writers from all over the world. We wanted to give space and representation to women, blacks, LGBT…”, explains Silva. The space has portraits of Paulo Lins, Milton Hatoum, Charles Bukowski and, of course, Clarice Lispector.

On the menu, despite the coffee preparations following European and American standards, it was possible to include a touch of Brazil in the recipes. This is the case of the Mané Pelado cake, made with cassava, grated fresh coconut and half-cured cheese –the piece costs R$ 12–, or the Romeu e Julieta pudding, which has cheese mixed in the condensed milk dough and covered with guava paste, at the price of BRL 14.