Sal is sprinkled with local style and international cuisine.
We invite you all to get to know the Cabo Verdeans – through their music, local dishes and artesanatos. Sal is sprinkled with local style and international cuisine, catering to palates of all tastes, the local seafood is usually still kicking it’s that fresh! In the evenings you can find local musicians performing at restaurants and bars. The “morabeza” or good vibes from the Cabo Verdean people are intrinsic to their deep history of song and dance. Many people only know Cabo Verde through the songs of Cesaria Evora – a beautiful mix of African rhythms and Portuguese melodies.
The Cabo Verde archipelago was uninhabited until the Portuguese discovered the islands in 1456. Enslaved Africans were brought to the islands to work on Portuguese plantations. They were joined by entrepreneurs and refugees fleeing religious persecution in Europe, leading to a rich cultural and ethnic mix. The uninhabited island of Santiago, founded in 1462 was colonised by the Portuguese, the first permanent settlement city in the tropics. Slaves were brought here from West Africa and by the 16th century Santiago was highly successful as the transatlantic slave trade flourished.
Cape Verde was part of the Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau) and in 1951 the status of the Islands changed from colony to overseas province. The affirmation of the Cape Verdean Nation happened on the 5th July 1975 when Cape Verde finally gained independence from Portugal.
Today the influences of the West African and Portuguese heritage can been felt in the music, literature, the food and the language of the island. The official language is Portuguese, but most Cape Verdeans also speak a Creole dialect–Crioulo–which is based on archaic Portuguese but influenced by African and European languages.