Porão

Tiradentes, the colonial center of Brazil, has dozens of coffee shops, places that pride themselves on both their baking and their coffee. I won’t pretend that we tried them all, and so I won’t claim that Porão, or Basement, topped them all. In fact, we frequented a couple of other places closer to the center of town more often. Rocambole & Cia had the best baked sweets, but also sold cheese, served ice cream, and cooked inexpensive full meals. A little higher up the hill we found Padaria Padre Toledo, that served the best coffee. Visitors stumble upon both of these places, because wandering the old stone streets takes you directly to their front doors. Porão, however, takes a little hunting to find. It also has the best combination of excellent coffee and baked goods. The Padaria is a bit gritty and Rocambole overblown. Porão hits the balance perfectly.

If you know where to look, you will find Porão easily. Tiradentes is in the state of Minas Gerais, a name derived from its origins when gold was discovered there. The Brazilian – or more precisely Portuguese, the European owners of what became Brazil – gold rush happened a century before the Californian one. California became a state because it allowed the United States to claim the gold found there. As the gold petered out in Minas Gerais, revolution crept in. Portuguese royalty demanded more gold as it became harder to extract from the ground. To many enjoying the freedom of a colony far from the crown, independence seemed the only solution. Even church leaders got involved, Padre Toledo, whose name graces the bakery and whose 18^th century house, beautifully restored, stands a block uphill. The town of Tiradentes gets its name from one of the leaders of the movement, the only one executed for his participation.

When the gold flowed, the crown loved Minas and the population center then called Vila de São Jose, named to honor a Portuguese prince. In celebration of this mutual love, the crown gave the Vila the money and gold to build a huge church. Called the Matriz, or mother church, the church sits on a hillside a kilometer or so from the center of the town. The interior, particularly the sacristies, glow with gold, supposedly the largest amount in the Americas. After visiting the Matriz, you will want to stop for refreshment, and that’s when you will discover Porão. Leaving the front door of the church, walk straight ahead to the grand stairs. Pause at the top to take in the glorious view of Tiradentes and the gold-stocked hills beyond. As you look down the steep street ending at the Matriz, look to your rights at the first few buildings. Tucked into the basement of one house sits the aptly named Porão. It has a handful of tables outside in a patio carved into the hill and an equal number inside.

Deb and I went our first evening with our friend Ben Batchelder, who lives behind the Matriz. He himself had never been, despite having lived in Tiradentes for over 30 years. Too late in the day for coffee, we had acaí and pão do queijo, the bready cheeseballs now endemic everywhere in Brazil, but still a fundamentally a specialty of Minas. While we were there, Deb spied a lavender cake and bookmarked the spot. Almost our full stay passed without returning, but we went back at last. We had splendid coffee – most of Brazil’s specialty coffees grow in remote parts of Minas – and the lavender cake. Now, in my view lavender is a weirdly gendered item: most every woman I know goes crazy for it and most men just don’t care for either the smell or the taste. I know a woman who gave up her entire life to own a lavender farm in Oregon; I think she has made a new life growing a product I would never think about using. But this cake! The lavender came in like a distant whistle, a sound livening the air around us. The cake itself had a perfect consistency, full-bodied but still incredibly light, close to the best cake I have ever put in my mouth. Porão coated the bundt with lemon icing – not to sweet, the lavender contributing earthy notes rather than high sweet ones – that complemented the desert and the coffee. I have tons of reasons to return to Tiradentes, perhaps to live someday, and Porão is one of them.