Yangon’s Italian Food Festival Returns With Wine, Cheese and Culture

By Lwin Mar Htun 14 February 2020

The Italian Embassy will host the second edition of the Italian Food Festival on Feb. 23, featuring mouthwatering authentic Italian dishes and excellent Italian wines by the best local Italian restaurants, importers and distributors. 

The festival will be held at the garden of the residence of Italian Ambassador to Myanmar Alessandra Schiavo.

“This event is not only about foods, it’s friendship between Italy and Myanmar. We want to make Myanmar people understand the identities of our people, history and culture through this festival,” said Schiavo said at a press conference.

“The Italian Food Festival is aim at the general public,” she added. “That’s why we negotiated all of the lowest dishes prices with our exhibitors because we want to see all classes of people at the event.” The event is also free to enter.

Italy has total 400 different kinds of cheese and 800 different kinds of grapes. 

“We will bring something new to this event. When people say the top 10 wines in the world, about six are from Italy, so guests shouldn’t miss a chance to taste good wine,” she said. 

At the event, visitors can learn how to make authentic Italian homemade fresh mozzarella, taste wine, take a wine master class, play wine aroma games and see a lot of interesting storytelling about the origins of each product and the cultural traditions of Italy.

“This year, we added the activity for family that kids can make their own pizza with chefs at the festival,” she said. 

The event will also be plastic-free and participating businesses will use biodegradable products, except for water bottles. 

Participating businesses and groups include L’Opera, E’Cucina, Casa Mia, Fratello, Premium, Cellar Door, Illy, Ciao, Nwe Ta Pin, Fresco, Right Field, Campari, Ferrari Spumante, Volume, IKON Mart, JM Wine Importer, Wine Link, Woomool and Myanmar Deaf Chefs. 

Food and wine will be offered at promotional prices between 3,000 and 8,000 kyats (US$2.06-5.50) and part of the profits will go to charity.

There will be also be a prize drawing and live music.

There is no entrance fee and the event runs from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Feb. 23. The Residence of the Italian Ambassador is located at No. 33, Inya Myaing Road, Bahan Township in Yangon.

“For the general public, this is a great opportunity to taste delicious Italian foods and wines, learn more about Italian millenary food traditions,” said Schiavo.

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