The front of the A Regaleira restaurant on Rua do Bonjardim in 2007: a ground floor clad in polished granite with three round-arched openings under a wavy cornice, neon lettering over the door, a vertical yellow sign reading Regaleira, and wrought-iron balconies on carved stone consoles above — The Regaleira building on Rua do Bonjardim in November 2007, eleven years before the restaurant left it and the building became part of a hotel. Image: *Restaurante Regaleira (Porto)* by Manuel de Sousa via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Porto · Rua do Bonjardim, near the Rivoli · restaurant building documented from 1934, hotel since 2020

The Regaleira Building, Rua do Bonjardim, Porto — Where the Francesinha Was Created, Now the Mercure Porto Centro Aliados

For more than eighty years a building on the Rua do Bonjardim housed A Regaleira, the restaurant where Porto’s best-known sandwich, the francesinha, was created in the 1950s. The building was sold in 2018, deeply refurbished, and since October 2020 its ground floor has been the entrance of a hotel, the Mercure Porto Centro Aliados. It is not a protected building. What the municipal archive and the national register of historic shops record about it is set out below, together with what we could not find.

At a glance

A Regaleira opened in 1934 at numbers 85–87 of the Rua do Bonjardim, one of the old streets running north from the centre of Porto. The family that bought the restaurant in the following years still runs it, and between 1936 and 1953 the restaurant company enlarged and altered the building several times, as the building permits in the Porto municipal archive show; the last enlargement, in 1953, was designed by the architect Alfredo Ângelo de Magalhães. It was behind the counter of A Regaleira that Daniel David da Silva, a barman who had worked in France, created the francesinha. In 2018 the building was sold and the restaurant moved a few doors down; the refurbished building became part of the Mercure Porto Centro Aliados, which opened in October 2020 with its entrance and reception on the spot where the francesinha was first served. When the building itself was put up, and by whom, we have not found.

Key facts

Where: Rua do Bonjardim, 4000-124 Porto (Santo Ildefonso); the restaurant was at numbers 85–87, the hotel’s address is number 95
A Regaleira: restaurant opened in 1934, according to the national register of historic shops Comércio com História
Building permits: interior works and an enlargement in 1936, a change of project in 1938, an enlargement of numbers 87–89 licensed on 6 March 1953 with the architect Alfredo Ângelo de Magalhães
Francesinha: created at A Regaleira by Daniel David da Silva in the 1950s; the year usually given is 1952
Construction of the building: not known; it was standing by 1934
Hotel: Mercure Porto Centro Aliados, opened in October 2020, with 83 rooms and a garden inside the block
Protection: none. Not a classified monument; not on the Porto municipal heritage map (Carta de Património, PDM 2021)
Coordinates: 41.147224, -8.609601 · open in Google Maps

History

According to Comércio com História, the register of long-established shops kept by the Portuguese state, A Regaleira was born at Rua do Bonjardim 85–87 in 1934. In the following years it was bought by António Augusto Gomes Gonçalves Passos, and it has stayed in the same family: today it is run by his grandsons.

The building permits in the Porto municipal archive follow the restaurant as it grew. In August 1936 Regaleira, Limitada was licensed to replace the floors, panelling, window frames and street doors of numbers 85–87 and to replaster and paint the interior; in September of the same year it was licensed to enlarge the building at number 87, with the engineer Jorge Vieira Bastian. A change of project followed in 1938. On 6 March 1953 the Sociedade A Regaleira, Limitada obtained a licence to enlarge the building at numbers 87 and 89, with the civil engineer António Augusto dos Santos Soares and the architect Alfredo Ângelo de Magalhães.

In the 1950s António Passos brought to the restaurant Daniel David da Silva, a barman he had met in a hotel in France, who later became a partner. Behind the counter of A Regaleira, taking the French croque-monsieur as his model, Silva created a small sandwich of roast and smoked meats in soft bread under a hot sauce whose recipe he kept secret: the francesinha, now the dish most associated with Porto. The year usually given is 1952. The city of Porto included the restaurant among its protected traditional businesses, the Porto de Tradição.

That did not keep it in the building. The restaurant closed on 31 May 2018, after an agreement to end its lease, and the owner sold the building to become the entrance and reception of a new hotel. Comércio com História, which dates the closure to 2019, records that the building underwent a deep refurbishment and that A Regaleira reopened in July 2021 at number 83, next door. The hotel, the Mercure Porto Centro Aliados, opened in October 2020 at number 95, with 83 rooms and a garden with a pool inside the block. Its restaurant is called Sítio Esquecido, “forgotten place”, in memory of the Regaleira.

What you see

We have no free photograph of the front as it is today, so this description follows the photograph of 2007, taken before the refurbishment. The ground floor of the restaurant is clad in polished pink-grey granite and opened by three tall round-arched bays, two windows with vertical glazing bars on either side of the door, under a cornice that rises and falls in waves over the arches. Neon script over the door spells “Restaurante Regaleira”, a tall yellow sign with black letters reading “Regaleira” hangs from the upper floors, and notices in the window advertise the francesinha.

Above the restaurant, a long first-floor balcony rests on carved stone consoles and carries a wrought-iron railing of scrolls, and the tall windows of the upper floor have their own iron balconies. The same kind of iron balconies continues on the house to the right. We do not know how much of this front was kept in the refurbishment for the hotel.

Practical information

The building is part of a hotel, the Mercure Porto Centro Aliados; the interiors are for guests.
A Regaleira still serves the francesinha next door, at Rua do Bonjardim 83.
The building has no heritage protection; what is described here is its documented history.

Getting there

The Rua do Bonjardim runs parallel to the Avenida dos Aliados, one block to the east. The building is a few metres from the Rivoli theatre and about 200 metres from São Bento station; the Aliados and Bolhão metro stations are a short walk away.

Nearby

The Rivoli Teatro Municipal, the modernist theatre of 1936 by Júlio José de Brito, and the Edifício Rialto of 1942 on the Praça de D. João I, for a time the tallest building in Portugal.
The Teatro Sá da Bandeira, whose front on the Rua de Sá da Bandeira dates from 1875–1880, a classified monument.
São Bento station, about 200 metres to the south-west.
Café Majestic, about 250 metres to the east.

Do you know more?

On this page we have published what the Porto municipal archive and the register of historic shops record about the Regaleira building: the restaurant from 1934, the enlargements of 1936 and 1953, and the francesinha. We could not find when the building was put up or by whom, and we do not know how much of its front survived the refurbishment for the hotel in 2019–2020. If you know something — a name, a date, the people who built or lived in the house, an old photograph, a document, a book that mentions it — or if you can send us a photograph of the front as it is today, write to Sofia, who looks after these pages.

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Please start your message with the title of this page, so it reaches the right file. Every contribution is checked against independent sources before it goes on the page, and we always say where a piece of information came from.

Sources

Comércio com História, “Restaurante A Regaleira”: opening at Rua do Bonjardim 85–87 in 1934, the Passos family, Daniel David da Silva and the creation of the francesinha in the 1950s, the closure for the deep refurbishment of the building and the reopening at number 83 in July 2021.
Arquivo Municipal do Porto, building permits of Regaleira, Limitada: 984/1936 (licence 14 August 1936, numbers 85–87, interior works, engineer José Ribeiro da Silva Lima Júnior), 1140/1936 (licence 4 September 1936, number 87, enlargement, engineer Jorge Vieira Bastian), 907/1938 (licence 20 July 1938, numbers 85–87, change of project).
Arquivo Municipal do Porto, building permit 116/1953 (licence 6 March 1953): “PRÉDIO. Ampliar”, Sociedade A Regaleira, Limitada, Rua do Bonjardim 87, 89; civil engineer António Augusto dos Santos Soares, architect Alfredo Ângelo Vidal Coelho de Magalhães.
Wikipedia (pt), Restaurante A Regaleira: 1952 for the francesinha, the Porto de Tradição listing, the closure on 31 May 2018 and the sale of the building for the entrance and reception of a new hotel.
Jornal de Negócios, “Gigante hoteleiro põe Mercure na francesinha original do Porto”: the Accor hotel of 83 rooms in the building of the Regaleira, near the Teatro Rivoli.
Publituris, “Nasceu um novo hotel no Porto” (2 November 2020) and Time Out Porto, “Há um novo hotel no Porto, na Rua do Bonjardim”: opening in October 2020 at Rua do Bonjardim 95, 83 rooms, the garden and pool, the Sítio Esquecido restaurant named after the Regaleira.
Câmara Municipal do Porto, Carta de Património I, PDM 2021 (open data): no entry for Rua do Bonjardim 85–95; entries for the Rivoli (1936), the Edifício Rialto (1942) and the Teatro Sá da Bandeira.
OpenStreetMap / Nominatim: position, returned as Mercure, 95, Rua do Bonjardim, Porto.

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