Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — As part of the Third Edition of “The Italian cuisine week in the world” The Italian Consulate General, here, conducted the Street Food Festival, at the Italian cultural center, on Monday.

This festival highlighted Italian gastronomy, Culinary arts, ingredients, recipes and the authentic variety of Italian cuisine.

The festival contained multiple food stalls displayed by the sponsors and the participants of the Italian Cuisine Week such as Hilton Hotel, Park Hyatt, Lallo restaurant, Assila Hotel, Margherita KSA, Montana water by Sharbatly, Manuel supermarket, Ferrero, Loacker, Panino’s, and Sitafood, where everyone showcased different distinctive Italian delicacies.

Also during the festival, a charming collection of fine Italian music was played for the guests.

The event was attended by many from the diplomatic society, journalists, Italian community and Saudi guests.

The Italian Consul General Elisabetta Martini said: “Our aim is to bring to Jeddah, to the business community the best of Italian food and to promote Saudi tourism towards Italy.”

Martini added: “We have organized three dinners with two Michelin starred chefs from Italy, Chef Antonio Troiani and Chef Simone Coletti from Convivio and Acquolina restaurants in Rome. We offered those dinners to the Saudi business women and men working in the local food industry, because we want to promote our food and also local tourism toward Italy.

“Then we wanted to promote local restaurants which have Italian chefs and menu, so we organized three ribbon-cutting events at Lallo’s, Margherita and Park Hyatt. Moreover, we inaugurated an Italian special week at Manuel supermarket and finally, we organized the street food night to show that Italian food is not only fancy food but for everybody.”

The third edition of the Italian Cuisine Week was attended by the Ambassador of Italy, Luca Ferrari, and the Italian nutritionist, professor Luca Piretta who came to Riyadh and Jeddah, where he had two conferences at the Saudi Food and Drugs Authority in addition to holding several workshops and seminars.

Through time Italian cuisine became so popular and prominent all over the world, and it made an impact in in Saudi Arabia too, where there are many vendors of Italian food and recipes. So this initiative came from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Ministry of Agriculture as part of their belief in the beauty and the quality of Italian gastronomy.