MESSAGE FROM THE FESTIVAL DIRECTOR

This third Fes Festival of Culinary Arts is a first for Morocco .

The gastronomic arts, know-how and rituals will be celebrated in different areas of our medieval city, a living example of both Berber and Arab-Andalous civilisations. Moroccan cuisine will be showcased by the traditional cooks of Fes and interpreted by the grand masters of western cuisine so that it can be shown in all its glory.

This new Festival celebrates one of the last strong connections left to humanity: cookery. Thanks to cookery, bridges can always be built, not just with other countries around the Mediterranean, but further afield too.

During the Festival Fes will be connected with France , Japan , Greece , Spain , Brazil and Mauritius . We will be able to share and create together equally in the light of knowledge. Cuisine, just as any other Moroccan art, will take its part in the spirit of openness and exchange with the rest of the world.

This event is held in a context where contemporary food customers have undergone great changes over the last five years as a result of hybrid creations produced by chefs, as well as by cooks, winemakers, farmers, artisans, producers, researchers, designers, architects and even chemists in an experimental dynamic. We are proud to welcome to Fes all those chefs who have kindly honoured us with their presence, and particularly our traditional cooks, without whom Moroccan cuisine would not hold the place it does in the world today.

So what is Moroccan cuisine? What is its context? Rather than just allowing it to evolve in the same way as contemporary cuisine, how can it be sustained and radiate out both nationally and internationally?

We are certain that some answers to these questions will emerge during the various events of the Festival that will take place over three days.

Fatéma HAL