The Kita Food Festival 2024 is continuing for its fourth year and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. For those dedicated to the art of eating and drinking, add these dates to your calendars: the festival will take place in Kuala Lumpur from 4 to 8 September 2024 before landing on Singaporean shores from January to March next year.
A celebration of the potpourri which makes up Southeast Asian food, the roster includes a series of Four Hand Dinners and Kitchen Takeovers by acclaimed chefs and industry pioneers from across the region, as well as F&B industry thought leadership events and a Big Sunday Barbecue to wrap up the festivities.
Read on for some of the highlights for the KL Weekender.
A Food Affair
On 7 September 2024, the Kita Conversations symposium held in previous years on innovation and authority in food will evolve into a full-day event: A Food Affair. Snack, sip, and learn alongside keynote speakers and fireside talks by food experts from around the region; attend a series of interactive masterclasses in both food, wine and beverages; and then visit a vibrant marketplace with artisan food and produce from local farms and producers.
Mystery Box Menus
There will be Mystery Box menus offering a veritable smorgasbord of food options. These will emphasise local producers and terroir and will also explore the depths of cuisine across a variety of cultures. The full list of dinners will be revealed in late July. These will include:
1. Samrub Samrub Thai from Bangkok, a one-Michelin star restaurant and no. 29 on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2024 list, a shining example of our northern neighbours who are known for their unique and flavourful cuisine. Chef Prin Polsuk will be transporting the cuisine of Southern Thai fishermen to the Raw Kitchen Hall, for a casual dinner that reflects the food security, diversity, and community-driven cuisine of the Island natives of the Southern Thai Gulf.
2. The award-winning Pipit restaurant in Pottsville, New South Wales, Australia has made a name for itself by creating an elegant showcase of the region’s farmers and growers. Chef-owner Ben Devlin will run a Kitchen Takeover at Yellow Fin Horse restaurant in the KL city centre, by skillfully combining native Australian bush foods cooked with Malaysian-grown vegetables, native fruits and proteins.
3. Jakarta-based restaurant August, which has quickly risen to become one of Jakarta’s leading gastronomic stars and placed no.46 on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants. Chef Hans Christian returns to the festival to shine a light on the emerging trend of New Nusantara cuisine at Akâr Dining alongside Aidan Low.
4. Keynote talks and masterclasses that will include names such as Vanika Choudhary of Mumbai’s Noon restaurant, an Indigenous ingredient-centric restaurant with fermentation & foraging at its core as well as Ben Devlin of Pipit.
5. As per the festival’s tradition, the KL Weekender will end with a flourish with a Big Sunday Barbecue with Pete Smit of Dirty Supper (Singapore), 2-Michelin star Dewakan (Malaysia), by Chef Darren Teoh who also co-founded the festival and home cook internet sensation Anis Nabilah (Malaysia).
Kita Horizons Programme
The Kita Horizons programme will continue to drive its vision of inspiring the next generation of ‘proudly Malaysian’ chefs. This year, it’s getting bigger with Danish dairy company Arla Foods where 15 young chefs gearing up for a series of dining events which will require them to integrate dairy products with local Southeast Asian flavours and produce. On 8 September at the invite-only Thank You Dinner, these emerging cooks will create dishes using grade two vegetables and what are often considered secondary cuts of meat.
Tickets for the events in Kuala Lumpur will go on sale on 31 July for Kita subscribers, and 1 August for the general public on their official website.