Sri Lanka serves 2nd Hoi An International Food Festival 2017 in Vietnam

Group of Chefs at the opening ceremony

The second edition of the Hoi An International Food Festival took place from 20 to 26 March at Vietnam’s An Hoi Sculpture Park in Hoi An, an ancient town declared as a world heritage by UNESCO in 1999.

On behalf of the Ambassador, Srimali Jayayarathna, Second Secretary (Commercial) attended the opening ceremony on 22 March on the invitation extended by Keerthi Hapugasdeniya, the Co-Founder and CEO of the Hoi An Culinary Event, which was supported by the Embassy of Sri Lanka. 

Prior to the Hoi An Food Festival this year, Ambassador of Sri Lanka hosted a reception on 18 January at her official residence to introduce the organisers of Hoi An International Food Festival 2017.

The food festival welcomed 12 chefs from Sri Lanka, Finland, Greece, Germany, Russia, India, Mauritius, Taiwan, Sweden, Slovenia, Malaysia and USA. At the event chefs could exchange experiences in culinary activities including sharing cooking skills with local chefs, cooking demonstrations, etc. Chef Dimuthu Kumarasinghe, a renowned culinary celebrity represented Sri Lanka. Last year Sri Lanka was represented by Master Chef, Dr. Pabilis. All the chefs demonstrated their countries’ culinary specialties, using the finest locally sourced Vietnamese ingredients.

Hapugasdeniya made a comprehensive introduction of the event at the opening ceremony. He is an award winning Sri Lankan Chef currently residing in Australia, and Trinh Diem Vy, Chairperson of the Hoi An Culinary Events demonstrated some of Viet Nam’s traditional cuisines.

The aims of the festival are to introduce and promote different kinds of traditional cuisines and food cultures to the Hoi An Ancient Town while promoting Vietnamese cuisine to the foreign chefs.

Sri Lankan Chef with others and Sri Lankan stall Hanoi

The event marked a milestone in progress of bringing the best culinary practices and tourism to Hoi An, while brining Vietnamese cuisine to the world. Meanwhile, the President of World Association of Chef’s Societies (WACS), Thomas A. Gugler awarded a Certificate of Honour as a Cuisine Capital of Vietnam to Hoi An at the opening ceremony of the festival.

Ambassadors, diplomatic officers of the 12 participating countries and an official from the Ha Noi People’s Committee participated in the event.

The final day consisted the closing ceremony (on 26 March), with an awards ceremony for chefs and participating restaurants presented by the Hoi An People’s Committee. The event was followed by an elaborated closing ceremony with dancing performances and singing at the sculpture garden, lights and music.