Praia eats where Africa, Portugal and the Atlantic meet: corn-and-bean cachupa simmered overnight, tuna landed at dawn below the cliffs, and cane grogue distilled inland. Three days of markets, tascas, beach shacks and morna-soaked bars.
Praia's two-storey covered market on Rua Serpa Pinto works at dawn: the ground floor for Santiago papaya, mango and banana, the upper gallery for Fogo goat cheese, dried corn and bottled grogue. Traders thin out by 13:00.
A walled courtyard restaurant off Avenida Amílcar Cabral where lunch is proper cachupa guisada — yesterday's corn-and-bean stew refried with linguiça and a fried egg on top. Tuna steak with xerém when the cachupa pot runs dry.
Cape Verde's largest open-air market sprawls below the Plateau. Skip the clothing aisles for the food end: sacks of cassava and dried mackerel, palm oil, tamarind, and cane grogue decanted by the litre from interior villages.
The terrace under the flame trees on the Plateau's main square is Praia's unofficial living room: short bica coffee from Fogo-grown beans, pastel de nata, and pontche de mel — grogue cut with sugarcane honey and lime.
The tiled fish hall below the Plateau takes the morning landings from Gamboa: garoupa, wahoo, moray eel and yellowfin tuna gutted to order on concrete slabs. Prices drop sharply once the day's boats have all unloaded.
A blue-and-white seafood house on the cliff above Prainha cove, with the catch chalked up daily: lapas (limpets) in garlic butter, whole grilled garoupa, lobster sold by weight, and a jug of white wine from Chã das Caldeiras on Fogo.
The thatched beach bar at the far end of Quebra Canela owns the afternoon: pastel com diabo dentro (tuna-stuffed sweet-potato pastry), grilled squid skewers and cold Strela beer served with your feet in the volcanic sand.
The hillside dining room looks straight down onto the harbour lights, and the kitchen plates Cape Verdean staples with care: djagacida, slow-cooked cabrito, buzio stew, and pudim de queijo built on island goat cheese.
Fifteen km west in the Ribeira Grande valley, cane trapiches still crush sugarcane with ox- and diesel-driven presses and distil grogue in copper alembics. Growers pour the raw spirit alongside thick, dark mel de cana.
Riverside terraces on Rua Banana sit under banana and papaya trees at the foot of the valley. Lunch is caldo de peixe, tuna in tomato, and cachupa rica on Sundays, finished with mango and coconut cut at the table.
Back on the Plateau, women set out folding tables from mid-afternoon: pastéis fried to order, bolo de milho, doce de papaia, coconut cocada and roasted corn. Everything is sold by the piece and paid for in coins.
A small Plateau bar that builds its cocktails on local grogue rather than imported rum — mixed with tamarind, hibiscus and passionfruit — and serves plates of Fogo goat cheese and chouriço alongside live morna and coladeira sets.