Café de Chinitas: flamenco in its essence

In the Café de Chinitas / said Paquiro to his brother: / ‘I am braver than you / a better bullfighter and a better gypsy’. These are verses that Federico García Lorca wrote as a tribute to the oldest Café Chantant in Spain and direct ancestor of today’s flamenco venues known in Spain as tablaos: Café de Chinitas in Málaga, which, from 1857 to 1937, opened its doors to the general public and indeed to ruffians, offering them the purest and most genuine flamenco anywhere to be found.