Peter Café Sport: the Sailors’ Bar With the World’s Largest Scrimshaw Museum

There’s a saying among yacht crews crossing the Atlantic: “if you sailed to Horta and didn’t visit Peter Café Sport, you never really came to Faial.” Few establishments in the world hold as much maritime history within a single bar counter.

From a passion for sport to the name “Peter”

The café was born amid the First World War, in 1918, when Henrique Lourenço Ávila Azevedo moved premises and renamed the business “Café Sport,” in honour of his passion for football, rowing, and billiards. The name “Peter” came later, tied to his son José Azevedo: an officer aboard the British ship HMS Lusitania II, noticing a resemblance between young José and his own son named Peter, started calling him that — and the nickname stuck for life.

A safe harbour for Atlantic sailors

For decades, sailors and whalers stopped at Peter Café Sport, keeping up the tradition of leaving a memento behind. From 1921 onward, Dutch tugboats were stationed at Horta’s harbour to assist vessels in distress during the harsh North Atlantic winter.

The world’s largest private Scrimshaw collection

It was this connection to whalers that led José Azevedo to start his own collection of Scrimshaw pieces — the art of engraving or carving sperm whale teeth and bones. Opened in 1986, the Scrimshaw Museum, on the café’s first floor, now holds hundreds of pieces, including one of the largest sperm whale teeth in the world.

Themes of longing, not romance

According to the museum’s own staff, the most common themes in Scrimshaw pieces are whaling, the woman left ashore, the voyage, and longing — “sad themes,” with nothing romantic about the whale hunt itself. Among the represented artists is Fátima Madruga, who inherited the craft from her father.

Planning your visit

• Location: Rua José Azevedo “Peter,” 9, on Horta’s waterfront.
• Hours: Monday to Saturday, 9:30am-1pm and 2pm-6:30pm; Sundays, 9am-1pm and 4pm-6pm.
• Museum access: through a door salvaged from an old boat, on the first floor.

Nearby highlights

Horta Marina, with its sailboat paintings, sits right across from the café.

After Peter Café Sport, walk along Horta Marina to see another chapter of the same maritime tradition that made this city a landmark port in the North Atlantic.

Learn more about whale watching in the Azores.

Learn more about traditional crafts in the Azores.