In the second half of the 19th century, Bucharest was rapidly transforming from an oriental-style market town into a European capital, with grand ambitions, imposing buildings, and an increasingly lively social life. Old traditions intertwined with novelties brought by Russian, Austrian, and French influences, while the city’s inhabitants sought places to spend their free time, discuss politics, art, and—why not—gossip. In this context, one of the most picturesque haunts of Romanian bohemia was born: Fialkowsky Café, the place where “wine was mixed with witty words” and the elite entertained themselves with anecdotes, debates, and moments of improvised theater.

An epicenter of spirit and political debate

The café’s founder was a visionary confectioner named Fialkowsky, of Polish origin. He arrived in Bucharest in the 1850s at the invitation of an Italian confectioner and quickly realized the potential of Piața Teatrului (Theater Square), the area in front of the National Theater, which was becoming the cultural and social heart of the city. In 1856, Fialkowsky opened a café and pastry shop in Casa Torok, on the site previously occupied by the “Grubert” and “Oswald” beer halls.

Initially named Café de l’Opera, the establishment quickly attracted customers from all social classes: foreign officers, local aristocrats, theater actors, and budding intellectuals. It was not just a place for consumption but a stage for conversation and social performance.

The cosmopolitan atmosphere, refined desserts, and aromatic coffee quickly established the café in the Bucharest landscape. For 42 years, until the founder’s death, the café remained a landmark of bohemia and refined decadence.

Fialkowsky Café was not merely a place where pastries were served. It was a platform of ideas, an informal club where people discussed literature, theater, and politics. Caragiale, Eminescu, Macedonski, and many other intellectuals of the time were regular patrons.

Here, passionate speeches were delivered, heated disputes erupted between supporters of the two major political parties, and every change of government was enthusiastically debated.

Writer Constantin Bacalbașa, a witness of the era, captured the café’s bustle: “everyone speaks loudly, everyone talks about the fatherland, everyone about salvation, with cold water, yet burning, fervent…” Without intending to, Fialkowsky’s became a hub of civic life, where students, professors, and politicians met with actors and poets, and the spirit intoxicated itself with its own force.

Ion Luca Caragiale and humor as life’s spectacle

One of the café’s most fascinating presences was I.L. Caragiale. Early in his career, the playwright spent his evenings at Fialkowsky, where he was adopted by professors and intellectuals. He quickly stood out with his brilliant humor, his ability to mimic public figures, and his mercilessly precise portrayals.

Caragiale never laughed at his own jokes but provoked roaring laughter around him, at a time when irony became a subtle weapon against public ridicule. For many who knew him at Fialkowsky, Caragiale was first the café’s improvised actor before becoming the playwright of the stage.

The bohemian aristocrat: Macedonski and the elegance of decadence

Another emblematic figure of the café was Alexandru Macedonski, the symbolist poet with the air of a cold aristocrat. With shining black eyes behind his glasses and a calculated demeanor, Macedonski sipped mazagran—iced coffee served with a straw—with the elegance of a dandy. He did not surround himself with equals but with fascinated disciples, whom he charmed with stories and ideas, offering them tobacco from luxurious cases.

He smoked from a yellow cigarette holder that he claimed once belonged to a Polish king and, it was said, even experimented with light drugs—signs of his boundless hedonism. Macedonski was the perfect image of refined decadence, a restless spirit living his bohemia between cafés, literary salons, and secret gardens.

The tragedy of the great actor Ștefan Iulian

Besides poets and playwrights, Fialkowsky also hosted famous actors. Among them was Ștefan Iulian, a talented young man noticed by Caragiale, who created for him the roles of Ipingescu and Pristanda. Charismatic and full of vitality, the actor won audiences with his natural style.

Sadly, tuberculosis—the disease of the 19th century—took him before he reached his full potential. He spent his final years mostly at the café, where his pale face, unkempt beard, and melancholy gaze turned him into a spectral presence. His friends looked at him with both respect and sadness, aware that his talent had been cut short too soon.

The café’s eccentrics: Boyar Câmpineanu with his lions and snakes

Fialkowsky Café was not frequented only by artists but also by characters hard to imagine today. The most spectacular was Boyar Constantin I. Câmpineanu, an imposing man nearly two meters tall, counselor at the Court of Appeals, passionate not about literature but about snakes. He carried them on his chest and fed them pigeon meat right in the café.

As if that spectacle were not enough, Câmpineanu once brought in a lion cub on a leash, which quickly became the café’s mascot. His passion for reptiles was inherited by his daughter Constance and grandson Ion I. Câmpineanu-Cantemir, who continued the family eccentricity. Thus, at Fialkowsky poets, actors, bankrupt aristocrats, magistrates, and eccentrics alike gathered, all animated by a thirst for spectacle and conversation.

A decadent venue lost to time

The café’s heyday was in the second half of the 19th century. For decades it was a center of Bucharest life, but the early 20th century brought slow decline. Modernization, changing habits, and the appearance of other elegant establishments gradually reduced Fialkowsky’s importance.

In the 1930s, the building housing the café was demolished to make way for a modern structure commissioned by the Adriatica Insurance Company, designed by architect Rudolf Fraenkel.

Thus disappeared not just a venue, but a cultural institution of pre-war Bucharest, a place where ideas clashed, friendships formed, and part of Romania’s cultural history was written.

Although it no longer exists physically, Fialkowsky Café lives on in collective memory and in memoirs. It was more than a place of consumption: it was a forum of ideas, a stage where every client became an actor—be they a fervent politician, a bohemian poet, or an eccentric aristocrat.

Here memorable lines were spoken, myths were created, destinies unfolded. The café’s spirit reflects an era when words, conversation, and irony were supreme values.

Today’s Bucharest, with its modern cafés, has nothing of that incandescent atmosphere, but its cultural memory cannot be erased.

A temple of Bucharest bohemia

Fialkowsky Café remains a symbol of pre-war Bucharest, a place where decadence intertwined with genius and where the social spectacle was as important as the one on the stage of the National Theater.

It was the place where wine was mixed with “witty words,” where Caragiale sharpened his irony, Macedonski displayed his elegance, Ștefan Iulian lived his tragedy, and Boyar Câmpineanu flaunted his snakes.

Today, we can only imagine the bustle of that space, the smell of coffee mingling with tobacco smoke, the raised voices of political debates, and the bursts of laughter triggered by Caragiale’s anecdotes.

Fialkowsky Café no longer exists physically, but it remains a vivid page in Bucharest’s cultural history, reminding us that sometimes conversation can be stronger than any glass of wine.