Vitória

The Portuguese captaincy of Espírito Santo was granted to Vasco Fernandes Coutinho, who founded his first settlement at Vila Velha in 1535. Under constant attack from Indigenous peoples and from French and Dutch raiders, the settlers moved their capital to a nearby island in the bay, and on 8 September 1551 founded Vila Nova do Espírito Santo. It was later renamed Vitória, "Victory", after a battle won by Coutinho's forces against the Goytacaz. The town was built on the high ground of the island, with narrow, steep streets and forts guarding the shore.

For centuries Vitória was a small port, cut off by water and by the forested mountains behind it. It became a city in 1823, but growth came only with coffee: from 1894 landfill was used to fill in the low-lying parts of the island and join smaller islands to it, changing its shape completely. A bridge to the mainland opened in 1927 and the first harbour pier in 1941. Of the 50 islands that originally made up the archipelago, many have been absorbed into the main one.

From around 1970 the port became one of the most important in the country, and the city industrialised around iron ore and steel at Tubarão. The modernisation swept away much of the colonial and imperial city. In 1989 the Third Bridge opened across the mouth of the bay, turning Vila Velha from a sleepy seaside town into a fast-growing part of Greater Vitória.

Capixabas — the people of Espírito Santo — mix Portuguese, African, Indigenous, Italian and German heritage, and the state is one of the places in Brazil where Pomeranian German is still spoken in some highland communities. Vitória is the meeting point of these influences and a city that likes to stress its distance from both Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, above all in the kitchen.

Religion runs deep. Our Lady of Penha is the patron saint of the state, and her festival in the week after Easter is one of the oldest and largest religious events in Brazil. Men walk 14 kilometres in pilgrimage from Vitória's cathedral across the bay to the Parque da Prainha at the foot of the convent hill, and nearly a week of music and shows fills the park. Congo bands, playing the state's typical music of Indigenous and African roots, perform at religious festivals.

The black clay pots of Goiabeiras are the city's best-known craft. Made by the paneleiras, the women potters of the neighbourhood, they are inseparable from moqueca capixaba, and their making was registered as a national cultural heritage in 2002. Football support is divided between the big Rio clubs and local sides such as Rio Branco, the state's most successful club.

About 320,000 people lived in the city of Vitória at the 2022 census, while Greater Vitória — including Vila Velha, Serra and Cariacica — had about 1.9 million. The municipality covers the main island, more than thirty smaller islands and a strip of mainland, and is the smallest of Brazil's state capitals in area.

The economy rests on the ports, trade, services and heavy industry. The port of Tubarão belongs to the largest port complex in Brazil, shipping iron ore brought by rail from Minas Gerais; the steelmaker ArcelorMittal Tubarão and the mining company Vale are the biggest industrial employers. Vitória has had the highest income per person of Brazil's state capitals and ranks near the top for quality of life, though inequality is visible on the hillsides around the centre.

Most of the middle class lives in towers in Praia do Canto, Jardim da Penha, Jardim Camburi and across the bridge in Vila Velha. Days follow the working week: offices and the port by day, the beachfront promenades busy with runners and cyclists early and late, and weekends at the beaches or in the cool highland towns an hour or two inland.

Moqueca capixaba is the city's pride. Fish — or shrimp, crab or a mix of seafood — is stewed with tomato, onion, garlic, coriander and annatto in a heavy black clay pot with a lid, and brought bubbling to the table in the same pot. Unlike the Bahian moqueca, it uses no palm oil or coconut milk; some food writers see the capixaba version as purer and closer to Portuguese fish stews. It is eaten with white rice and pirão, a thick porridge made from the fish broth and cassava flour.

The clay pot matters as much as the recipe. The pots of the paneleiras of Goiabeiras keep the stew hot for a long time, and families and restaurants across the state cook in them. At Easter, especially in Holy Week, households make torta capixaba, a baked pie of salt cod, palm heart, shrimp, crab and other seafood, also cooked in clay.

Beyond seafood, Vitória eats like the rest of south-eastern Brazil, with self-service lunch buffets, beach kiosks and chocolate from Garoto, the confectionery company founded by a German immigrant in 1929 and based in neighbouring Vila Velha.