Where do locals drink coffee in Lisbon?

Locals drink coffee standing at the counter — sitting down costs more and marks you as a tourist. The go-to spots are neighborhood tascas and cervejarias rather than any branded chain. In Mouraria, Café Nicola's working-class counterparts line Rua da Mouraria and charge around 65-80 cents for a bica, the local term for espresso. Pastelaria Versailles on Avenida da República draws an older Lisbon crowd and has since 1922. In Intendente, the cafés around Largo do Intendente serve the neighborhood's longtime residents alongside newer arrivals. A Brasileira in Chiado is genuinely historic but now mostly tourists. The functional rule: find any café where the pastéis de nata are homemade, the TV is on above the bar, and the menu is handwritten on a chalkboard. Order a bica, pay at the counter, drink it in three minutes. That is the actual Lisbon coffee experience, replicated in roughly 400 unremarkable and entirely reliable cafés across the city.

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