The Secret Poets Society is a cocktail bar hidden beneath Travessa do Carmo, in Lisbon's Chiado. Ring the bell, walk through the wine room, take the spiral staircase down. Twelve cocktails, each written after a poem, from Pessoa to Rimbaud, mixed by Lucas, a Brazilian poet and bartender who reads in five languages. Open every night till late. Reservations online.
Lucas came to Lisbon from Brazil with a notebook of poems and a bar spoon. He writes in Portuguese, reads in five languages, and builds a drink the way he builds a stanza: one idea, a turn, a finish that lingers. The twelve cocktails on the card are his translations of twelve poems. He is usually behind the bar. Ask him about the one he is still writing.
The room seats about thirty: a main floor, five stools at the counter, two armchair nooks. Reservations are confirmed instantly, online.