When she grew up, Sales followed the path of many others from Brazil’s deprived north-east and moved south in search of better work opportunities. She arrived in Rio de Janeiro and, unable to afford a home in tourist-heavy south zone, moved to a favela further north.
She crossed the city every day to work as a receptionist and secretary, but only really found her footing 15 years later when she and her husband opened a burger restaurant, inside the favela.
“The doors that aren’t open to us in the rest of the city, we open for ourselves here,” said Sales, 39, inside her restaurant in Maré, a favela complex that emerged in the 1940s in a vast mangrove area, settled by workers who could not afford to live in – or had been evicted by the state from – the wealthier parts of the city.
What usually dominates the headlines about Maré, a complex of 16 favelas home to 140,000 people, are problems such as poverty, armed drug traffickers and bloody police operations, but Sales’s restaurant has joined an effort to change that perception.
From 1 October, local bars and restaurants will take part in a month-long competitive food trail made up entirely of Maré establishments, hoping to attract visitors from across the city who are often afraid to visit a favela.
Were it not for the surrounding alleys so narrow that sometimes only one person can pass at a time, the tangled web of electrical wires crowding the utility poles and the occasional young man riding a motorcycle with a rifle, Sales’s restaurant could be anywhere else in the city – a family-friendly, air-conditioned burger joint. The superhero-themed decor was a request by Sales’s sons, and includes a life-size Spider-Man.
Her entry for the food trail will be, of course, a pork leg, made into burger named Peppa Pig. “It’s a reference to my story: a girl who came from the north-east, went through hell and is now here, proud and still fighting – just like many other people here in Maré,” she added.
One sweet-and-slightly-spicy element of the dish – a pineapple jam with chilli and ginger – she learned to make at Casa das Mulheres da Maré, a centre set up by a local NGO to support women and which organises the food trail, called Comida de Favela, or Favela Food.
“When we improve the quality of life of a woman in Maré, we’re improving the whole community,” said Mariana Aleixo, 38, the centre’s coordinator, herself a chef who was born and raised in Maré and has worked in the kitchens of Rio’s luxury hotels, including the Copacabana Palace.
The food trail is now in its fourth edition – the first was held in 2015 – and is one of four finalists in the Best Culinary Festival in Latin America category at the 2026 World Culinary Awards, which will announce the winners in October.
The 16 restaurants – selected from more than 150 applicants, most of them Black-owned – receive management and marketing training and, starting this year, guidance on how to support customers who report sexual harassment. The winners, chosen by customer vote, receive cash prizes.
Reflecting the origins of many residents or their ancestors, many of the dishes feature other references to north-eastern cuisine, such as the “North-eastern Explosion”, a pizza topped with cassava cream, coalho cheese – similar to halloumi – and carne de sol, a lightly salted cured beef usually fried in a clarified butter similar to ghee.
“Gastronomy is the biggest economic sector in the community,” said Aleixo, noting that of the roughly 3,200 businesses in the area, about 1,200 are restaurants and bars.
Aleixo said she had approached sponsors of other food festivals across the city and had never succeeded in securing their support. “I believe it’s because of prejudice against favelas,” she said.
Although the aim is for visitors to experience the favela from a “perspective other than violence”, Aleixo acknowledges that some may witness something that the thousands of people who live there have to contend with: the occasional presence of armed drug traffickers. Police generally do not patrol favelas unless carrying out operations.
The food trail has no connection to the criminals, who also do not interfere with its activities because they seem to understand that it benefits the community.
“Some of the experiences we live through here are very violent, and we want the city to have access to that. Understanding that sense of indignation that residents often have is important so that people can build a different repertoire for thinking about public security in Rio,” she said.
Despite the invitation to outsiders – Favela Food’s social media pages often advertise shuttle vans to bring visitors from other parts of the city and take them back again – another aim is to encourage the circulation of people and money between the complex’s own favelas.
While Sales’s burger restaurant is in the Parque União favela, the snack bar run by Beatriz Santos Antônio, 39, is in the Nova Holanda favela, a 15-minute walk away.
Born in another city in Rio de Janeiro state, Antônio arrived in Maré 16 years ago because she could not afford to live elsewhere. She and her children went through periods of hunger, but neighbours helped them, and she drew on cooking skills learned from her mother to start selling cassava fritters.
Her entry for the food trail consists of four elliptical fritters, a classic Brazilian bar snack that Antônio has taken to new heights: crisp on the outside and moist inside, filled with either roast beef or prawns with cream cheese.
“I’ve come a long way,” said Antônio, smiling as she wiped away tears and made the final preparations for her first time taking part in Favela Food.
“Today, these tears are no longer because of hunger. Today it’s a story of happiness and of being able to encourage other women to start their own businesses too. There is also a lot of happiness in the favela.”