Established tourist destinations usually have two sides of the same coin: they make us relive the same (good) experience; but with that they close our eyes to the unusual.
I’ve been to Salvador, Bahia countless times, including a few weeks ago. I don’t need to talk here about what I relived, probably things already familiar to readers of a tourist notebook.
What I want to talk about is moments that took me by surprise. Starting with my hosts’ restaurant, Manga, a novelty because it has only been around for three years, half of which are in pandemic, and also because it serves modern cuisine, far from the local touristic folklore.
They are more related to another house, Origin, with which they have curious coincidences (in addition to friendship): both have a restless and inventive cuisine, with a Bahian flavor and a worldwide face, and are managed by couples of cooks, he in the savory ones, she in candy.
At Origin (restauranteorigem.com.br), which I had visited before the pandemic, the duo is formed by FabrÃcio Lemos and Lisiane Arouca, researchers of the particularities of the five biomes they identify in Bahia.
At Manga (mangamar.com.br), the Bassi couple is in charge — the Bahian Dante and the German Kafe. In its menus, tasting or à la carte, the delicate presentation brings delicacies that reveal its experiences in restaurants around the world. You can combine, in the same dish, lambreta (local mollusc), its broth, peas, tomato, Spanish chorizo; or cauliflower roasted with hazelnut, curd emulsion and fried caper. (But for breakfast, there are traditional delights like couscous and tapioca.)
My surprises weren’t limited to the modern kitchens of Bahia. Even in this lightning passage I managed to have lunch at Dona Mariquita, where moqueca and acarajé are just accessories of the ancestral Bahian cuisine that chef Leila Carreiro exposes to our curiosity and palate —in dishes such as peguari salad (a shellfish) from the island of Itaparica with vinaigrette cashew nuts and green coconut, poqueca (shrimp moqueca on banana leaves), maniçoba do Recôncavo (with smoked pork), aridan bean pudding.
In the revisited Pelourinho, I enter for the first time the headquarters of the band Olodum, which, since 1979, born as a school of Afro-Brazilian rhythms, has become one of the mainstays of this culture, going far beyond music: it is a bulwark against racism and for rights civilians.
And it was also in Pelourinho that I immersed myself in another tradition that, I confess, I didn’t know about: cloves. It is a mixture of cachaça with cloves, honey, lemon juice and other components that flow from wooden barrels through taps and are mixed directly in the glass. Dense and fortified, it’s not something I would drink at home, but it reminds me of the places in Lisbon that sell ginginha liquor: being there, there’s no way to avoid it.
And I tasted it at O ​​Cravinho, with the appearance of a medieval tavern, all in dark wood; as well as in a smaller place, but it’s heir, Cravinho do Carlinhos, where the bonus is the gizzard with flour and pepper.
But not everything was new. One of the things to review, no surprises and with pleasure, was the Mercado Modelo —less for the handicrafts, but because I bought my indispensable Bahian manioc flour there (I didn’t find Itororó’s, which once caught my attention, but I don’t complain about the fine and yellow from Nazaré das Farinhas, right there in the Recôncavo).
I saw a quiet little beach of fishermen on the Red River without the crowd of faithful with the offerings of the day of Iemanjá. I went to Solar do Unhão, home of the museum of modern art beautifully restored by Lina Bo; and to the impeccable Amado restaurant (amadobahia.com.br), for a casquinho of aratu with licuri flour (among other delicacies), and a last view of the sunset over the BaÃa de Todos os Santos.
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