(Prensa Latina) Casa Villarino, one of the cradles of the bossa nova music movement in Brazil, closed its bar and restaurant in Rio de Janeiro indefinitely after 67 years due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Located on Calogeras Avenue in the center of the most touristic state in the country, the place, which started as a ‘whiskeria’, was frequented by artists because of its proximity to old recording houses.
It was among Villarino’s tables that, in the summer of 1956, journalist Lúcio Rangel introduced the composer and singer Tom Jobim, considered by Rolling Stone magazine the greatest exponent of Brazilian popular music, to the lyric poet Vinícius de Moraes with the music of the work Orfeu da Conceição, premiered a few months later.
The administration of the establishment preserves the table on which Jobim and De Moraes sat to seal the association, as well as the original floors from the time and photos from the 1950s.