After meeting at DOM in São Paulo, one of Brazil's most famous restaurants, and travelling the world assisting celebrated chef Alex Atala, Dante and Katrin (Kafe) Bassi put down roots in Dante’s home city of Salvador seven years ago, aiming to match the standards of Sao Paulo’s haute-cuisine scene. Alongside raising four children, they have built Mangamar with similar love and care – joking that the restaurant is their fifth child.
The atmosphere is elegant but also full of warmth and vitality. On the night I visit, a silver-haired couple are marking a special anniversary while nearby groups of young friends linger over wine.
Personal family touches add special flavour to the inspired dishes at Mangamar: the bones for the opening broth come from hens reared by Dante’s uncle, while the kirsch for one of the desserts is distilled by Katrin’s father in Germany.
A nine-course tasting menu reflects the Bassi team's playful sensibility and Eduardo, the house’s calm and attentive maître d’, talks me through each course as it arrives, recommending wine pairings — including a delicious Brazilian sparkling wine served with oysters in beurre blanc, peas and roe.
The meal begins with an understated touch of theatre: the signature starter, a delicate but warming laying-hen and lambretta mussel broth, is poured over a bouquet of fresh herbs right at your table.
A refreshing goat cheese and beetroot salad is next, followed by silky Chawanmushi – a savoury Japanese custard – intriguingly presented with mangrove crab and pink bougainvillea petals.
Glazed yellowtail arrives in a toasted coconut broth with squash and lentils, followed by a hearty course of beef tongue and sweetbreads.
One of three desserts, a choux, nestles in a basket-like floral arrangement, accompanied by different Bahian honeys, all sumptious variations of liquid silk produced by the region's unique native, stingless species (Meliponini).
“We think a lot about beauty and aesthetics,” Kafe told me, who was trained as a pastry chef at DOM. “We want people to be surprised – and to keep talking about the food.”
Kafe's playful ingenuity is nowhere more present than in another of her sweet inventions, a life size cacao bean in a cacao pod. Or so I thought. The 'bean' turns out to be a mould of white chocolate, so realistic, I was about to pluck the beans out until instructed to crack the crust, provoking a sublime raspberry mouse to burst out and reveal one of the most delicious deserts I've ever had.
All the dishes at Mangamar evolve from the couple's passion and technical prowess, both of which are in clear abundance, but also in response to what’s fresh from the market and the sea. Kafe shops at the organic market every morning, while Dante stops by the seafront at dawn as the fishermen haul in their catch. Local ingredients meet global technique – including sea urchin and sapoti (a sweet tropical fruit similar to pear) – all handled with restraint and imagination.
Mangamar isn’t trying to imitate anyone else, but confidently serves up its own interpretation and expression of Salvador, one of Brazil's most beautiful cities, both in nature and spirit, yet still strangely under-populated by international tourists. With its cultural wealth and surrounding natural paradise, once Salvador attracts the travel hype that it inevitably will, this outstanding restaurant will no doubt be the talk of the tourist world. For now, however, I am very happy treasuring this gastronomic secret.
