Salvador Da Bahia

May 8^th, 9^th & 10^th 2014

Casa Sabor’s next pop-up, in a new venue around Old Street, will celebrate the food of Brazil and the regional capital Salvador Da Bahia.  A five course menu will cover some of the classics, but also some dishes that would be classed as Modern Brazilian Cuisine, featuring traditional local ingredients cooked in a less traditional manner to emphasise respect for the ingredients, flavoursome contrasts, and healthy balance in what we eat.  We’ll be using all the techniques of the modern kitchen, and to some extent ‘deconstructing’ traditional dishes, to highlight the flavours of fresh fish and seafood, as well as high quality meats, fruit and vegetables.

The evening will be a feast for the ears too!  Bahia is central to Brazil’s music scene. Many of the giants hail from this northeastern state — Caetano Veloso, Tom Zé, Gal Costa, Maria Bethania, Carlinhos Brown, and João Gilberto, the founder of bossa nova. Not forgetting, of course, Olodum, the Afro-Brazilian group featured on Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints.

 2014 seems to be Brazil’s year, with the World Cup turning attention to the people, culture and food of the largest country in South America and as diverse as the rest or the continent.  When we’re asked what is Brazilian food like, we have the same answer: it’s a melting pot with contributions from indigenous people, descendants of African slaves, the Portuguese and other Europeans.

For some the soul of Brazil is in the north, in the state of Bahia, birth place of Samba and capoeira. Salvador Da Bahia, the oldest city in Brazil, is the epicenter of Afro-Brazilian culture with an spicy colonial taste.  Bahian cuisine, widely considered Brazil’s best, draws heavily on African, indigenous, and Portuguese influences. The queen of regional dishes is moqueca, a spicy fish stew, and one of our long-standing favourites at Sabor.  The magic touch is the orange dendê oil, derived from a small African coconut, which gives much of this region’s cooking its distinctive richness.

Bahia de Salvador’s street food is great too – like the acaraje. These deep-fried black-eyed-pea cakes stuffed with vatapá (a paste of shrimp, coconut, palm oil, and peanuts) are Bahia’s fast food. They’re prepared by baianas, matrons usually dressed in white, the color of Iansã, the candomblé goddess of the wind.

We are delighted that Ozone Coffee Roasters cafe will be the venue for our next pop-up. The owners are part of the new generation of very serious coffee aficionados and they are lighting up London with really great coffee.

This is fantastic for me as a ‘native’ of the coffee region of Colombia – even though I’ve been living in London for more than twenty years now, I keep my close ties by running our family coffee farm by ‘remote control’ from the heart of Islington! Whilst we can’t (yet) serve you coffee sourced from my own family’s farm, we’re confident that you won’t be disappointed by what Ozone have to offer after dinner.

Ozone is located at 11 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4AQ, just round the corner from the Old Street roundabout, and not far up the road from Liverpool Street or Shoreditch Overground station.

We will be open from 7pm in the evening. Please follow this link to secure a place for this limited run. Let us know if you are vegetarian or have any other dietary requirements by emailing us at our contact page. Also please get in touch by e-mail if you are a party of 8 or more, so that we can make the most appropriate arrangements for your table – some good spaces for larger groups are available.

Come and celebrate Brazilian food and culture with us on the 8th, 9th, or 10th May, 2014!