Story
It's Friday, ritual day at number 15 Travessa de Miraflor. ‘Rosa, are there two seats there?’ asks José Carlos, to which Rosa, after moving one chair and another, replies that yes, ma'am, ‘there are two by Zé de Matosinhos’. The tavern was full that day, as usual. Low lights, paper towels on the tables, some codfish baits ready to go, Tal da Lixa served fresh and a Portuguese guitar arpeggio setting the tone: quiet, we're going to sing fado.
It's been like this for 10 years. Every Friday, Adega Viela organises stray fado sessions and many have been attending since the first day. ‘I'm always here,’ says Vininha at the counter, while arranging the details of the excursion that will take her to Lisbon for the Fernando Maurício tribute. José Silva, ‘born and bred in Campanhã’ and peeling some prawns next door, boasts that he was the first to open the fados. Fernando Oliveira, who celebrated his 50th birthday in the same winery, in a surprise party that left him in tears, has no doubt that those who come for the first time will love it: ‘This is a family’.
If it's a family, then there has to be a matriarch and that post is occupied by Rosa Meireles. "When I arrived here 15 years ago, this was a little adegazinha. It didn't even serve two meals a day," she says with dispatch, totalling up the clientele's consumption in a small block. Today, Adega Viela is known for its good food, whether it's Porto style tripe, chicken cabidela or fried marmots. It's Rosa who dictates the menu, with the help of Fátima and her son André, and it's she who raises the toasts so that ‘there's never a lack of pinguinha’ in this fado that is life.
Fado has always been with her. Born in Ribeira 65 years ago, a Salgueirista with her dues up to date and a non-practising Benfica fan, Rosa Meireles is the daughter of a fishmonger mother and a fado singer father. She's been singing since she was a little girl, moaning with her body and her voice. One day, lyricist Carlos Bessa wrote her a lyric: ‘I'm Rosa da Ribeira / Meireles, the surname / Heiress to a sad fado / Fighting a lifetime / Proud to have been born / In this beloved country of mine’. It is with these words that she closes Fridays at her Adega Viela, where there is always room for one more.
"If I have to feed four or five, I will. I've always opened my door. He just doesn't open the door to bad behaviour, which sours the food. His immense heart, a communist until he died, earned him the city's Gold Medal of Great Merit, awarded by the Porto City Council. But the decorations that matter most to him are his people: ‘I like these people who don't know what evil is.’
The family is often growing. That afternoon, Rita Oliveira, aged 22, made her fado singing debut at Adega Viela. ‘I felt really good,’ she said, still shy, at the end of her performance. Alfredo Sousa, a long-time customer, nodded. José Carlos, presenter, fado singer and organiser of the sessions, shouted enthusiastically, ‘Great Ritinha!’. And Emília Romano, Rita's godmother on her debut, dedicated a song to her.
‘We've finished another marvellous afternoon of fados,’ José Carlos finally decreed, close to eight in the evening. Rosa has to wake up at 7am the next day. "I work 100 per cent. I only rest on Sundays. And even on Sunday, the guitars continue to ring in her head. *In the middle of a dog-eat-dog world / But with the grace of God / I built my little house. All this is fado, all this is Adega Viela!
