Senzafronzoli

About

Senzafronzoli is the queer name of Pausa Cafe, a cocktail bar on the Dora embankment in Aurora, a few streets from the Porta Palazzo market. The bar has been there about twenty years and the Senzafronzoli nights for about seven. Between them they give Turin the only proper gay bar it has, which is how the Italian guides and its own regulars describe it.

What happens there: aperitivo with a buffet, DJ sets, drag shows, karaoke, live jazz. The crowd is young and mixed and the room is small enough to fill quickly. In summer the whole thing moves outside, up to and including a pedestrian street party on the embankment.

Aurora is working class and multi-ethnic, and the bar has had a rough time with what goes on around it. Turin's local press has written about drug dealing and fights in the streets outside and about a vandal attack on the bar in 2022. Its answer has been to put on more, not less.