The 7th Taste the Mediterranean festival starts next week
Split is set to become a gastronomic centre of Mediterranean from 7th to 10th of October. The 7th edition of the international Taste the Mediterranean festival, a unique event promoting Mediterranean food, gastronomy, products, wines and Mediterranean intangible cultural heritage, will be held in the city at the foot of Marjan.
This year’s edition of the festival will welcome international culinary stars and renowned chefs crowned with Gault&Millau toques and Michelin stars who will be guest chefs at the distinguished Split restaurants.
Les Nanas de la Food Sphere (The girls from the Food Sphere), an international collective of women chefs, will prepare an exclusive dinner in the Zora bila restaurant all along the Croatian women chefs.
Topic of the first meeting of the platform Mediterranean Women Chefs, which will be held at the Briig Hotel, will be the role of women in gastronomy. Mediterranean Women Chefs is an international platform that aims to improve the role of women in gastronomy. Ombudswoman for gender equality Višnja Ljubičić and representatives of French Institute (Institut Français) in Croatia will participate in the meeting.
Since this year’s edition of the festival coincides with the 10th anniversary of inscribing the Mediterranean diet in the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage, the first panel is dedicated to the importance of Mediterranean diet in the development of sustainable tourism. The director of Tourist Board of Split County, Joško Stella and HE the Spain Ambassador to Croatia Alonso Dezcallar de Mazarredo will participate at the panel.
One of the leading Mediterranean countries, Spain, is this year’s partner of the festival and has an honour to present its specialties, as well as its wines, while the exclusive Spanish dinner at the Briig hotel will be prepared by chef Maria José San Roman, Monastrell restaurant in Alicante, 1 Michelin *.
Taste the Mediterranean has established a special cooperation with Greece, another Mediterranean country known for its gastronomy, thus a region Eastern Halkidiki and an acclaimed Greek chef Dina Nikolau will participate at the festival.
The EUs’ The Farm to Fork strategy for Sustainable food confirms that the food is one of the most important topics of modern times. This strategy will be presented on the panel with the same name by the Croatian member of the European Parliament Biljana Borzan, who will be accompanied by the experts Sonja Karoglan Todorović, Dr. sc. Darko Znaor and Jan de Jong, a Split-based Dutch entrepreneur who’s heading to a new professional adventure of merging agriculture and modern technology with his CROP project. Small volume manufacturers and family farmers will also participate at the panel.
Croatian producers of top-notch olive oils from Croatian World Award winning Olive Oils will also be presented at the festival. Exclusive wine tastings of Italian, Spanish and Croatian long forgotten varieties will be led by wine connoisseurs Siniša Koceić and Alen Gulan from Vinolike, a nutritionist Olja Martinić will speak about Mediterranean diet.
Two masterclasses by renowned foreign and Croatian chefs will be held at the festival, as well as exclusive educations for students of Tourism High School in Split, Olive Allegra, Wallner and Aspira University College. Raise the Bar Academy will introduce its programme destined for young chefs, barmens, waiters and managers.
The central events will take place in the Briig Hotel, where the grand opening of the festival will occur on Thursday, 8th of October at 10 PM. On the same day, an exclusive Spanish dinner will be organized in the Median restaurant within the Briig hotel. Other dinners will take place at the Noštromo, Štorija, Zora bila, Zrno Soli and Bokeria.
This festival is a great opportunity for promoting the city of Split and Dalmatia region as leading Mediterranean and gastronomic destinations, as well as fantastic promotion of Croatian Mediterranean identity, Mediterranean diet and heritage.
Festival was introduced at the press conference by (on the picture from left to right): Duška Žižak – Marketing and Sales Director of Briig hotel, Joško Stella – Director of the Split-Dalmatia County Tourist Board, Monserrat Perez Ripoll – Representative of the Spanish Embassy and Economic Trade Office in Croatia, Ingrid Badurina Danielsson – director of the Taste the Mediterranean festival and Dario Mamić – director of corporate communications at Tommy.
