Bahian Food Guide: What to Eat in Salvador

To us, Bahian food is the most distinctive regional cuisine in Brazil, shaped by West African cooking, Portuguese techniques and local seafood. Its signature is dendê, the palm oil that gives many dishes their deep orange colour, along with coconut milk, dried shrimp and fresh coriander.

Acarajé

The city's defining street food: a black-eyed pea dough deep-fried in dendê, split open and filled with vatapá (a creamy paste of bread, shrimp and peanuts), caruru (made with okra), a tomato salad and dried shrimp. Ask for it "quente" if you like it spicy, or "frio" if not. It's sold by baianas de acarajé, women in white lace dresses and headwraps, whose craft is recognised as part of Brazil's national heritage. The stalls in Rio Vermelho and at Farol da Barra are among the best-known. Abará is the steamed version, wrapped in a banana leaf.

Moqueca baiana

A stew of fish, prawns or both, cooked with dendê, coconut milk, peppers and tomato, and served bubbling in a clay pot with rice, farofa and a chilli sauce. Portions usually feed two. Bobó de camarão, prawns in a creamy cassava and coconut sauce, is a close relative.

Sweets and snacks

Cocada, a sticky coconut sweet, is sold from trays around Pelourinho. Tapioca pancakes, filled with cheese or coconut, make a filling breakfast. For dessert, the Sorveteria da Ribeira, a short ride from the Bonfim church, has been making ice cream in local fruit flavours for decades.

Where to eat

Rio Vermelho, with its acarajé stalls, seafood restaurants and busy bars, is the city's best neighbourhood for eating and drinking, and our where to stay guide suggests it as a base if food is your priority. Pelourinho has restaurants in restored colonial houses, some aimed squarely at visitors. Barra has casual places near the beach.

Dendê is rich and can upset stomachs unused to it, so start with a small portion. A 10 percent service charge is usually added to the bill, and it is optional, though most people pay it.