With the proposal to unite the best of Brazilian modern art with classics of French gastronomy, the recently opened Cícero Bistrot, in Lisbon, has a collection worthy of a gallery.
No wonder, between one dish and another, most customers take the opportunity to walk around the two floors of the restaurant and check out the works, signed by different artists. The big star, however, is Cícero Dias (1907-2003), from Pernambuco, who gives the restaurant its name.
“In addition to being a reference for Brazilian modernism, Cícero Dias is also a reference from the point of view of his actions against exceptional regimes, both in Brazil and in Europe”, says one of the partners, Brazilian businessman Paulo Dalla Nora Macedo, who moved this year to Portugal with his family.
In the luggage also came two containers with works of art gathered over 25 years as a collector. A countryman of the businessman, Dias was already featured in the collection, now partially available to the public.
Cícero Dias began to make a name for himself in Brazilian art in 1931, when he caused a furor by exhibiting for the first time “Eu Vi o Mundo… and romanticism. The following year, he illustrated the first edition of the book “Casa-grande e Senzala”, by Gilberto Freyre.
Persecuted by the Estado Novo dictatorship, he went into exile in Paris in 1937. In France, he became close to avant-garde artists such as Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso, with whom he became friends.
In 1942, after Brazil declared war on Germany, Cícero Dias was arrested in Paris, then occupied by the Nazis. After diplomatic negotiations that also involved an exchange of prisoners, the artist is released and leaves France.
He then moved to Portugal and started to act as cultural attaché at the Brazilian embassy. In the same year, Dias helped with the translation efforts of Paul Eluard’s “Poésie et Verité”, a poem that extols hope in difficult times. With the help of the British Embassy, the work is launched on the war front by Royal Air Force planes, with great repercussion. The performance of the Brazilian painter in this episode earned him, years later, a decoration from the French government.
With the end of the war, Cícero Dias returned to Paris, where he remained until his death in 2003. The decades abroad did not erase the references to Pernambuco in his work.
Located in Campo de Ourique, the most French neighborhood in the Portuguese capital, the new bistro aims to unite the influences of the three great places in Cícero Dias’ life: Pernambuco, Paris and Lisbon.
“The restaurant has this undeniable homage to Cícero Dias, but not only to him. There are a number of other artists who, in some way, were also influenced by this modernist movement”, says Paulo Dalla Nora.
The space is divided into three themed rooms. In the first, among the works on display, lithographs and an oil on canvas by Cícero Dias stand out, as well as a panel by the French artist Marianne Peretti.
“Marianne is a Parisian artist who took the opposite route. In the 1940s, she moved to Brazil. She was then invited to work with Oscar Niemeyer’s team in Brasília, she was the only woman to join the group of artists who built the capital”, recalls the businessman.
The second room is dedicated to French cuisine. The space brings together contemporary paintings, with works by Sidnei Tendler, Felix Farfan, Bruno Vilela, Kilian Glasner and Paulo Brusky.
More reserved, the “Salão Referências Populares do Brasil” has as its protagonist a wooden panel by the artist Cariri. The room also has works by Lula Cardoso Ayres, Samico and João Câmara.
The menu, where French cuisine has Portuguese-Brazilian elements, is signed by Portuguese chef Hugo Cortez Teixeira. One of the highlights of these influences is the prawn and sea bass dish, with coconut sauce and palm oil, served with basmati rice (39 euros, about R$201).
Cicero Bistrot
R. Saraiva de Carvalho 171
Lisbon, Portugal
