Gran Caffè Gambrinus in Piazza Trieste e Trento has been a must for anyone visiting Naples for over a century. Gambrinus is the renowned literary café where past and present Italian and foreign intellectuals and artists meet to discuss politics, literature and art. The café’s wonderful rooms hosted personalities such as Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Sartre, Croce, D’Annunzio, Ernesto Murolo, Totò, Eduardo Scarpetta and the De Filippo Brothers.
The café was founded in 1860 as Gran Caffè and immediately became the city’s salon. The work of Europe’s best pastry chefs, ice cream makers and baristas meant that it became one of the “Royal House Suppliers”, an honour that Bourbons awarded only to the best suppliers in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In 1890, after careful renovation, the Gran Caffè became the Gran Caffè Gambrinus. Its rooms, named according to the subject discussed in them, were enriched with precious works of art: marbles by Jenny and Fiore, stuccoes by Bocchetta, bas-reliefs by Cepparulo. The most famous Neapolitan landscape painters decorate its walls.