Asia-Pacific’s leading chefs fly in for Sumba Food Festival

For more than a quarter of a century, Asia’s best-known hotel food festival has unfolded beneath the chandeliers of one of Thailand’s grandest hotels.

Held each September since 2000 at the hotel, now branded Anantara Siam Bangkok, the World Gourmet Festival has become one of the region’s premier culinary events, attracting Michelin-starred chefs and names from the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.

This year’s World Gourmet Festival, which runs from September 29 to October 4, continues the tradition with more than a dozen visiting chefs from Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Alongside degustation dinners, the week features chef’s table experiences, masterclasses, wine dinners and culinary collaborations that have made it a fixture on Asia’s gastronomic calendar.

This October, however, another hotel food festival will bring together chefs of the same calibre in dramatically different surroundings.

Aacessible via a one-hour flight from Bali, Sumba has long been overshadowed by its famous neighbour. The remote Indonesian island receives only a fraction of Bali’s visitors, which makes it an unlikely setting for a gathering of eight of the Asia-Pacific’s leading chefs.

Here, though, at the Sumba Food Festival, hosted by luxury eco-resort Cap Karoso, the destination – its produce, traditions and producers – is the primary ingredient.

Guests head out on fishing boats at dawn, wander through the resort’s three-hectare organic farm, browse local markets alongside the chefs and later gather around communal tables to taste menus created from whatever Sumba has yielded that day.

The concept proved its worth when the festival debuted last year.

Singapore chef Mano Thevar, whose restaurant Thevar holds two Michelin stars, became so captivated by the produce growing metres from the kitchen that he expanded his lunch menu after discovering banana, turmeric and galangal leaves harvested fresh from the farm.

Japanese chef Kanji Kobayashi, whose acclaimed Villa Aida is built around farming outside Osaka, admitted many of Sumba’s herbs and vegetables were unfamiliar.

Cap Karoso founder Fabrice Ivara says such encounters are what the festival was created to encourage. Rather than flying chefs to Sumba simply to cook, he wanted them to spend time with local producers, discover unfamiliar ingredients and leave with a deeper understanding of the island’s culinary traditions.

Those discoveries have shaped this year’s program. Across two weeks, eight chefs from across the Asia-Pacific will each spend several days cooking, exploring and collaborating on the island.

Among them are Seoul’s Joseph Lidgerwood, whose Evett holds two Michelin stars; Osaka’s Yusuke Takada of two-Michelin-starred La Cime; Bangkok duo Davide Garavaglia of Cote by Mauro Colagreco and Dan Bark of Cadence; Bali’s Gaetan Biesuz of Rumari at Raffles Bali; Indonesian locavore pioneer Eelke Plasmeijer of Locavore NXT in Ubud; Keiko Kuwakino of Japan’s mountain restaurant Sanaburi; and Brando Moros, the Michelin-starred chef behind Dubai’s 11 Woodfire.

The format is intimate. Four-hands dinners, where two chefs collaborate on a one-off menu, are limited to just 22 guests. The wider program includes chef-led farm lunches, beach dinners and food safaris exploring Sumba’s varied landscapes.

Opened in 2023, Cap Karoso has placed a working organic farm at the heart of the guest experience, making the festival a natural extension of the resort’s philosophy.

One of last year’s most memorable events wasn’t a Michelin-starred dinner at all, but a cooking competition for local home cooks. One entrant, aged more than 100, served a family chicken curry recipe that sent several visiting chefs home with fresh ideas.

Proceeds from the festival help fund clean water projects, nutrition education, sustainable farming initiatives and grants for local food entrepreneurs working with Sumba’s native produce.

Sumba is better known for its wild horses, ikat weaving, the Pasola Festival of spear-fighting, megalithic villages and rugged coastline. While not aiming to change that, the Sumba Food Festival adds another delicious dimension.

The Sumba Food Festival runs October 5-18. See capkaroso.com