Ubud Food Festival is set to kick off again from May 12 until 14 2017 in Ubud, Bali. Alongside Indonesian chefs, restaurateurs, producers and food professionals, celebrated culinary icons from around the world will also take part in this year’s event. This year, the festival will be infused with the theme ‘Every flavor is a story’ as a mean to celebrate Indonesia’s culinary heritage and to tell a story of the archipelago’s history, geography and diverse cultures.

A 2017 UFF pre-event held at Plataran Menteng, Jakarta on April 13 dished up a discussion themed ‘Bringing Indonesian Food to the World’ featuring UFF initiator Janet De Neefe, celebrity chefs Farah Quinn, Ragil Imam Wibowo, and Petty Elliott. The discussion explored around the necessity  for Indonesia  to seriously work on its culinary domain as an important tool to globally promote its nation’s tourism.

Chef Ragil said, “It is so hard to determine the focus of Indonesian traditional cuisine since Indonesia has a very diversed food landscape; each is unique to its origin”. “There has to be some sort of comprehension and agreement on what cuisine that Indonesia wants to globally promote. But we all should start at home. It has been very rare to see mothers who are willing to introduce Indonesian foods to their children. Indonesian mothers currently prefer to feed chicken nuggets to their children”, Ragil further explained.

Meanwhile, Farah Quinn said that Indonesian food is no longer the king in its own country. “The best quality of culinary ingredients are usually exported. The ingredients sold in domestic market are not good quality products”, said Farah who is renown for her cooking program on national television.

Featuring World Class Culinary Celebrities

The third Ubud Food Festival will also be the biggest event out of its three installments showcasing more than 100 speakers from Indonesia and around the world. The three-day event will be filled with various programs such as talkshow, discussion, masterclass sessions, cooking demos, and movie screenings.

Guests includes Bali’s own Chris Salans from Mosaic institution in Ubud, Hujan Locale’s Will Meyrick, and Locavore’s Eelke Plasmeijer who recently made it onto Asia’s 50 best restaurants list as well as Mischelin-star chef Nic Vanderbeeken of CasCade Restaurant Ubud.