CAPTIVATING -BRAZIL- CAPSTONES : TOURISM 2023. {13}

Manaus, Brazil : River-to-table cuisine and kestrel recipes in the heart of Amazon.

Michelin-starred restaurants in Sao Paulo use Amazonian ingredients to appear exotic, but in Manaus, where you can sip steamy gourds of tacaca from a stand in front of the Teatro Amazonas or wander past plastic bottles tucupi, the juice squeezed from grated cassava , in Adolpho Lisboa Municipal Market, Amazonian ingredients are a fact of life.

At the Indigenous-owned Biatuwi, a restaurant that pays homage to ancestral recipes and cooking techniques, drinks are made from fermented purple yams, and chiles are used to purify river fish piquant stews like quinhampira.

Then there's the chef Felipe Schaedler, who has helped threatened Yanomami communities commercialize their native mushrooms and runs two restaurants of his own : Banzeiro and Moquem do Banzeiro.

Steering away from traditional preparations, Mr. Schaedler reimagines ingredients like lemon-grass flavored ants and tambaqui ribs in a modern format, as do the bistros Caxiri, set in a colonial building overlooking Largo de Sao Sebastiao, a grand plaza, and Fritz Carraldo, in the boutique hotel Villa Amazonia. [ Nicholas Gill ]