Madrid’s iconic celebrity café’s celebrity guests!

For three generations, Tom Burns Marañón’s family treated Madrid’s Café Gijón as a cornerstone of public life. Founded in 1888, the Gijón survived wars, riots and dictatorship, only to succumb to modern property deals. Its recent closure – to be reopened as just another “tourist” restaurant – marked the end of Madrid’s last historic literary café.

The loss sent shockwaves through the city. El País mourned the “evaporation of a century of coffee-scented debate” and “another nail in the coffin of old Madrid”.

Located on the Paseo de Recoletos, the Gijón was defined by its austerity: linen cloths, no music and brisk service. It was a neutral ground where literary giants like Galdós and Valle-Inclán argued, and where Franco-era dissidents debated under the watchful eyes of the police. From Orson Welles’s and Ava Gardner’s visits to Antonio Banderas’s chance meeting with director Pedro Almodóvar who famously helped launch his film career, the café was a stage for history.

No one went for the food. They went for coffee, brandy – and destiny. As Francisco Umbral noted, there was one door in and several ways out: glory, failure, despair. When Alfonso the anarchist cigarette seller died, he was replaced not by a man, but by a photograph.

Madrid still has cafés – but its legendary “literary gossip shops”, where writers were made over coffee or brandy, are slipping quietly into memory.

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Nora Johnson’s 15 critically acclaimed psychological suspense crime thrillers, including the latest ‘The Girl in Red’ (www.nora-johnson.net), all available online at Amazon etc. Profits to Cudeca cancer charity.