Roça São João dos Angolares is one of the most delicious and unusual experiences in São Tomé: a former cocoa plantation in the south, perched on a hill overlooking the sea, which the celebrated chef, artist and TV presenter João Carlos Silva transformed into a hotel-restaurant and art space renowned throughout the Portuguese-speaking world. People come here, above all, to eat: to enjoy the legendary tasting menu of creative Creole cuisine.
The restaurant is a feast for the senses: a long menu of many courses, made with fresh island produce —fish, fruit, spices, cocoa— and served on a large covered veranda decorated with artworks, with the sea as a backdrop. Before it begins, a 'mouth spa' ritual with cocoa, pepper, ginger and a sip of wine gets the palate ready. It's cooking, art and show all at once.
This guide tells you how to visit São João dos Angolares: how to get there, how to book the tasting menu, what to expect from the roça-hotel and the surrounding south, and who the Angolares are, the fishing people of this land. A must-stop for anyone who wants to discover the culinary and creative soul of São Tomé.
São João dos Angolares is a cocoa roça in the south of São Tomé, in the land of the Angolares, a fishing people whose tradition links their origin to a shipwreck of Angolan slaves in the 16th century and to the island's maroon communities. The plantation was converted by chef and artist João Carlos Silva into a hotel-restaurant and art centre that made São Tomé's Creole cuisine famous, with its multi-course tasting menu. More about the Angolares and the history of the place on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Equatorial rainforest, a needle of lava piercing the sky and the land of the Angolares, the descendants of rebel slaves who gave the country its first hero: Rei Amador.
Read the history of The rainforest south of São Tomé →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The roça and the village of São João dos Angolares take their name from the Angolares, one of the most distinctive communities on São Tomé. They are a fishing people from the south of the island, with their own cultural identity and even their own creole, Angolar, which is different from the Forro spoken in the rest of the country. Their history is wrapped in tradition and legend.
According to the most widely told story, the Angolares descend from enslaved Africans who survived the wreck of a slave ship from Angola in the 16th century and took refuge in the wild, mountainous south of the island. Other historians argue that they formed from slaves who escaped the plantations, known as maroons, and gathered in the south, far from colonial control, living off the sea and the forest. Most likely, both processes played a part.
Whatever their exact origin, the Angolares became a separate community, resilient and bound to the sea, and for centuries they kept a degree of independence from the roças and the Portuguese administration. Their most famous historical figure is King Amador, leader of the great slave revolt of 1595. Even today, the Angolares keep their language, their fishing traditions and a strong sense of identity in the south of São Tomé.
In the 19th century, when cocoa became the great economic engine of São Tomé, the south of the island, home of the Angolares, was also covered with plantations. This is when Roça São João dos Angolares was founded. It was a cocoa plantation like many others, with its manor house, outbuildings and workers, making use of the fertile, humid land of the south.
Like the other roças of São Tomé, São João was part of the system of large plantations that made the archipelago the world's biggest cocoa exporter in the early 20th century. They were worked by 'serviçais' in conditions close to slavery. The south, with its extremely rainy climate and rugged terrain, was one of the hardest and most isolated areas to farm.
After independence in 1975 and the decline of cocoa that followed, many roças in the south were abandoned or barely used. São João dos Angolares would have gone the same way if not for an unexpected turn: decades later it was converted into a culinary and artistic project that gave it a second life and a fame it never had as an ordinary plantation.
The transformation of São João dos Angolares is the work of a remarkable figure: João Carlos Silva, a chef, visual artist, cultural promoter and television presenter, and one of the great ambassadors of São Tomé's culture and food in the Portuguese-speaking world. In the old abandoned roça, Silva saw the potential for a project that would bring together cooking, art and the island's own produce.
He turned the plantation's manor house into a hotel-restaurant and art space, decorated with his own work and that of other artists. There he created a groundbreaking culinary concept: a multi-course tasting menu that reinvents São Tomé's creole cooking with fresh local ingredients such as fish, tropical fruit, spices and cocoa. It raises that cooking to the level of fine signature cuisine without losing its popular roots.
His television programme and his charisma gave the project international reach. São João dos Angolares became a cultural icon of São Tomé and a must-stop for travellers, cooks and the curious from across the Portuguese-speaking world. The roça, once just another plantation in the south, became a beacon of the country's culinary and creative identity.
The São João dos Angolares project is part of a wider movement to give new value to São Tomé's creole cooking. This mixed cuisine grew out of the meeting of African and Portuguese traditions and those of the different communities that settled the islands. Its foundations include dishes such as calulu (a fish or meat stew with leafy greens and palm oil), molho de peixe, the local feijoada, and desserts made with breadfruit and cocoa.
João Carlos Silva takes the island's produce and ingredients and reinterprets them in a creative, ritual-like menu where each course tells a story. That means fresh fish from the south, tropical fruit, spices and, above all, cocoa, since São Tomé grows some of the finest in the world. The famous opening 'spa de boca', with cocoa, pepper, ginger and wine, is a piece of staging that turns a meal into an experience.
This approach has helped bring local produce to the fore and has given the country's cooking pride and visibility, at a time when São Tomé is looking to quality tourism and its fine cocoa as new sources of development. The roça has become a symbol of how heritage, whether an old plantation or a culinary tradition, can be reinvented and create value.
Today Roça São João dos Angolares is one of the essential stops on a trip to São Tomé, especially if you are touring the south of the island. Travellers come for the legendary tasting menu, for the roça's artistic, bohemian atmosphere and for the chance to stay in its pousada, a plantation manor house with views of the sea and the forest.
Its location also makes it an ideal base for exploring the wild south. Nearby are Pico Cão Grande and its volcanic landscape, the unspoilt beaches of the far south such as Praia Jalé with its turtles, and the trails of Parque Natural Obô. Eating superbly, sleeping in a historic roça and having the south's great natural sights close at hand is a combination that is hard to beat.
São João dos Angolares brings together, in a single place, several layers of São Tomé's history and culture: the memory of the Angolares and their bond with the sea, the legacy of the cocoa roças, the richness of creole cooking and the creative energy of the island today. It is a plantation that stopped producing chocolate and started producing experiences, and it has earned its place among the country's great destinations.
