Building on its successful debut last year, the Kita Food Festival is back and sweetening the pot with an illustrious 2022 calendar.
The Kita Food Festival is an annual event offering a range of exceptional dining experiences, masterclasses, TED-like talks and forums with some of the world's finest chefs, winemakers and food thinkers. Kita aims to highlight the value of culinary heritage and ethical producers, offer inspiration and skills to the younger generation of food producers, and build a platform for thought leadership and community. Festivities begin in Langkawi in September, before heading to the Unesco heritage city of George Town, Penang, in October, and culminating in Kuala Lumpur in November.
The festival launches on the tropical island of Langkawi, where Indian chef Prateek Sadhu, previously of Mumbai's Masque, and Malaysia's Dewakan chef Darren Teoh will feature at The Datai Langkawi. From Sept 23-25, Sadhu will collaborate with Teoh and The Datai chef de cuisine Chai Chun Boon in a six-hand dinner, with each chef cooking two dishes from their cultures. The following night, a fine dining dinner by Sadhu displays his take on Indian cuisine at The Dining Room. The weekend will wrap up with a masterclass by Teoh, who will lead a small group of eight on a tour through The Datai Langkawi's permaculture gardens, harvesting leaves, flowers, buds and roots to be used in a hands-on cooking class at The Dapur, which will culminate with lunch at The Gulai House.
From Oct 14-16, the Kita Food Festival reconvenes in Penang and will see chef Johnson Wong pair up with Bangkok's 80/20 executive chef Andrew Martin at Gēn. Au Jardin's chef-proprietor Kim Hock Su will team up with Aitor Jeronimo Orive of Singapore's Basque Kitchen by Aitor for a sumptuous spread that draws from both chefs' expertise in analogous French and Basque cuisines. The four will then work together, alongside a coterie of Penang's finest chefs, including Mathijs Nanne of Suffolk House, Nurilkarim Razha of Jawi House, Tan Hong Tat (aka Wagyu) of Communal by Gēn and CC Lee of JuJu Lounge & Restaurant for The Great Mezze, at George Town's popular art gallery and cafe-bar ChinaHouse. This casual Sunday mash-up will see teams of chefs serving a selection of hot and cold mezze from locally-sourced producers against a buzzing backdrop of art, cocktails and a live band.
The last two weekends in November include a series of dinners at some of the city's foremost restaurants, among them Akar Dining, Dewakan, Ember, Entier, Hide, Joloko and Shhhbuuuleee. Chefs include Rishi Naleendra from Singapore's Cloudstreet, Ivan Brehm from Singapore's Nouri, Jeremy Gillon from Singapore's JAG, Eelke Plasmeijer and Ray Adriansyah of Bali's hyper-local Locavore and Jordy Navarra of Manila's Toyo Eatery.
The Kita Food Festival 2022 will incorporate a Big Sunday Barbecue where star-studded chefs line up to co-create innovative dishes from their respective grilling stations. The calendar will also include a series of ticketed masterclasses and workshops, from ancient world wines to home fermentation techniques; each delivered by experts in those disciplines and inviting participants to learn new skills and ideas.
This year, the festival will also encompass ''Conversations", a series of talks and panel discussions by innovators and business leaders in the food and beverage industry.
Co-founder of the Kita Food Festival, Teoh says: "The goal of Kita has always been about building community. We set out to connect as many people as we can through this festival; chefs, guests, vendors, restaurateurs and even those on the fringes of the industry. We believe that no one should operate in a silo. We want to build something for our future and it takes a village to raise one. So in this second year, we continue to work towards strengthening this small community that we are raising, to build better relationships, to build wider relationships and to have fun doing what we do as a craft."
Visit kitafoodfestival.com.
