Chairman of the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. Alvin Jemmott and wife Lydia share a light moment by the ice sculpture at the launch of the 2017 Food and Rum Festival at George Washington House.
Local talent to take centre stage at 2017 Food and Rum Festival
Six local chefs will be the headliners for the Food and Rum Festival which takes place November 16-19 in Barbados.
Now in its eighth year, Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy noted that this represents a “coming of age” of sorts for the award-winning chefs, who will share the spotlight with three international chefs hailing from Barbados’ top source markets.
“That is what the 2017 Food and Rum festival is all about. It is a classic example of how you can see a festival coming of age. We were importing the talent before, but we have seen the cross-over, we have gone over the Rubicon and we now we see the locals taking over the challenge.”
Headlining chefs include Henderson Butcher, Michael Hinds, Michael Harrison, Creig Greenidge, Damian Leach, John Hazzard and Willis Griffith. International chefs Tom Aikens, Chris De La Rosa and Jean-George Vongerichten are also expected to bring their flair to the festival. Minister Sealy also highlighted the talents of award-winning mixologists Jamal Bowen and Ryan Adamson.
Speaking at a the official launch of the festival at the historic George Washington House on Wednesday night, the Minister recalled that the festival has come a long way, starting as the Barbados Food and Wine and Rum Festival partnering with American Express, and shifting focus to local talent and of course local rum by removing “wine” from the title, during the island’s 50th anniversary of Independence last year.
Minister Sealy, while encouraging stakeholders to continue their partnership, noted that with the level of talent in the country, the festival can be expanded even further in the
community and become one of the most important events on the Barbados calendar.
“I think food is so widely celebrated and so unanimously popular that it can be a serious magnet to bring people here around this time... People want to have a part of this. We have to continue to fuse those other elements, the entertainment and so on, that we can have a true festival that can grow from strength to strength.”
The Minister revealed that discussions and plans are already ongoing in terms of the 2018 edition of the festival.
“How we can even broaden the stakeholdership to involve more of our community practitioners as well. So those eateries that may be mobile, the Suzuki vans, the community spots that are so popular, our visitors want a piece of that as well.” (JH)