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The northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador is famous for its summers. Between December and March, the city fills with music, particularly in the old city, or Pelourinho, and daily festivities take place in the Cidade Alta — the “high city,” set on a bluff overlooking the Baía de Todos os Santos (All Saints’ Bay) — as well as in the commercial district below and even out to sea, aboard launches and sailboats. In the past few years, galleries and arts institutions from Brazil’s southeast, like Galatea and Pivô, have opened branches here, as have a clutch of luxury hotels, thanks to a growing number of vacationers drawn to Salvador’s singular cultural life. Salvador, as people in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s biggest and richest cities, will tell you, is having a moment. But this idea, common in the country’s faraway southeast, is merely a belated acknowledgment of Salvador’s indelible contributions to Brazilian culture, says the artist and designer Daniel Jorge: “You couldn’t possibly describe the city as emergent. It’s always been here.”
Founded in 1549, the city served as Brazil’s capital for more than 200 years before Rio took the title in 1763. As a hub for the brutal slave trade, which was not abolished until 1888, Salvador was also where countless kidnapped Africans were first brought to the Americas. Today, it’s the Blackest metropolis outside of Africa, with more than 80 percent of its 2.42 million inhabitants claiming African descent, and diasporic religious, musical, linguistic and culinary traditions are Salvador’s lifeblood. Both Salvador and Bahia, the state whose capital the city remains, have played outsize roles in Brazil’s 20th-century cultural life, producing luminaries like the musicians Maria Bethânia, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, the novelist Jorge Amado and the filmmaker Glauber Rocha. Salvador leaves an indelible mark on the people whose creative identities were formed there. The artist Nádia Taquary, who lived in the United States for several years and is now back in Bahia, says, “Salvador is so vivid in me that, even when I was away, I was still here. This place comes with me everywhere.” The Experts
The photographer and chef Angeluci Figueiredo runs four restaurants in Salvador: Preta Tira Chapéu, Peixe Voador and Preta Bistrô in the city, and the original Preta on the Ilha dos Frades, an island in All Saint’s Bay, where she also runs a guesthouse, Pretoca Pousada. The artist and designer Daniel Jorge moved from Rio de Janeiro to Salvador in 2020. Tiganá Santana is a São Paulo-based musician, linguist and professor. The painter and sculptor Nádia Taquary was raised on the Bahian coast in the city of Valença and now lives in Salvador. Sleep
“At Pousada do Boqueirão in [the neighborhood of] Santo Antônio Além do Carmo, the owner, Fernanda, who moved here from Italy 41 years ago, has an amazing eye. And she’s a nonna who really embraces everyone.” (From about $80 a night) “The Hotel Fasano Salvador always feels special. It’s in the heart of the city, not in a fancy area or far away. You can really feel the spirit of Salvador.” (From about $420 a night) — Angeluci Figueiredo “Casa Recôncavo is a three-bedroom house in Santo Antônio Além do Carmo that I helped design. The owner bought the old house, which has amazing views of the water, with the intention of turning it into an art residency. We did the project with a focus on reused materials. In the end, he decided to rent the house out instead.” (From about $300 a night for a two-night minimum stay) — Daniel Jorge Eat and Drink
“Recanto da Tia Maria is a humble place near the sea, in an area called Pedra Furada, and the food is exquisite. Tia Maria is a community elder [and the chef], and the place is run by the women in her family.” — Tiganá Santana “There’s a marvelous bar called Purgatório. I love the gin and guava drink. There’s also A Borracharia, a former car repair place that’s a cafe during the day and opens at night as a music venue playing every kind of music — electronic, Brazilian. It’s pleasurable chaos.” — A.F. “Dona Mariquita Casa de Veraneio, on the seaside near the Mercado Modelo, serves comida patrimonial, or heritage food, from all across Bahia. I’ve had dishes there that I hadn’t thought I liked, such as maniçoba [ground cassava leaves fried with smoked meat], but I’ve liked them there. “The oyster moqueca [a type of stew] at Axego in Pelourinho is excellent, but everything is flavorful. Casa de Tereza, which has a more elegant atmosphere, also serves a delicious moqueca. I like the fish and shrimp version best.” — Nádia Taquary “In the Dois de Julho street market, Point da Codorna serves fantastic malassado [a Bahian version of pepper steak] and ice-cold beer. The prices are fair too, which means everyone can afford it. From there, you can walk straight down to the sea. “At the São Joaquim Market, Restaurante Beira Mar is run by Dona Regina, who’s been making medicinally infused cachaças [a spirit made from sugar cane juice]. for years. She has something like 180 different varieties: one for heartburn, another for heartbreak. It’s one of the most special places in the whole city. “The owner of Café & Câmera is a capoeira master and an artist. It’s inside the Church of the Third Order of Carmel, just above the catacombs, and a great spot for a coffee and conversation with one of the city’s most interesting people.” — D.J. Shop
“Tempo specializes in arte popular and work by smaller artists who aren’t represented by big galleries. You’ll find a little piece from every corner of the Northeast. “At the Ceasinha Market in Rio Vermelho, buy queijo coalho — a traditional cheese from Bahia — nuts, fruits, herbs and miel de cana, which is a sugar cane syrup.” — A.F. “Katuka Africanidades has clothing in African prints, masks, jewelry and books focused on African and Afro-diasporic subjects. Renato Carneiro, one of the shop’s co-owners, is a stylist, and the clothes are all made in Bahia. “Mirella Ferreira, another stylist, sells the clothes she stitches with her mother out of her home. She only works with linen. Request a catalog and place an order via WhatsApp, +55-718670-6668. ”The Ladeira da Conceição — one of the steep, historic streets that connect the upper and lower cities — is where you can visit the blacksmiths who are dedicated to producing the sacred symbols of Candomblé. There’s an artist, José Adário dos Santos, who’s been working there for 67 years.” — T.S. “There’s a great shop called Casa Boqueirão where you’ll find clothing from local designers, photography, rare books, old postcards, sculptures — a little bit of everything. “I’d also take back one of the ox-shaped clay water jugs, called a boi bilha, which are mostly made in the village of Maragogipinho, though you can find them at São Joaquim Market, along with other typical clay vessels called quartinha de barro. In our African faiths, water is life, so, yes, a quartinha de barro is a pot for storing water, but it’s not just that. There’s a whole world of stories behind it.” — N.T.
“At São Joaquim Market you can really feel that relationship between Africa and Brazil. You can find everything there, but the thing to take home is a bottle of dendê oil [made from African oil palm trees. Look for one where] the color is darker, not so liquid, and the smell is floral and strong. You can find these with vendors who sell groceries or food, such as dried shrimp, flour, nuts and beans.” — T.S. Explore
“Rent a boat and go out into All Saints’ Bay. You can swim in lovely, warm water, visit colonial churches on the islands and see the most marvelous sunsets. There are also beaches like the Ponta de Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe on Ilha dos Frades. You can stop for grilled fish at my restaurant Preta!” — A.F. “Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos is a Black church in Pelourinho where you’ll find an Afro-Brazilian mass with drums and chants — it’s a really interesting demonstration of the city’s syncretic traditions. “There’s the monthly JAM no MAM [a biweekly or monthly jam session at the Museum of Modern Art], and on Sundays there’s the Samba da Feira in the São Joaquim Market. The instruments, the percussion and the rhythm are all very different from what you’d see or hear in other parts of the country. The elders dance with their feet sliding over the floor.” — T.S. These interviews have been edited and condensed. Click here for a map of the locations mentioned above. Read past editions of Flocking To here.
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