Saudi Gazette

THE Italian Consulate General in Jeddah collaborated with Manuel Market, UBT, Crowne Plaza hotel and other sponsors to organize a Street Food Festival at the Italian Cultural Center on Sunday.

It was the closing night for the second edition of the Italian Cuisine Week.

Italian Ambassador Luca Ferrari attended the event along with Consul General Elisabetta Martini and members of the diplomatic corps, journalists, Italian expatriates and Saudi guests.

The Street Food Festival showcased a vast array of Italian gastronomy, featuring authentic delicacies by professional chefs.

A collection of fine classical music by famous Saudi and Italian artists including the well-known Italian legend Andrea Bocelli was played in the background.

The festival had many stalls represented by the sponsors and participants including Rosewood Jeddah, Sharbatly Fruit, Tartufo, Coffee Week, Assila Hotel, Lallo, Park Hayat, Margherita, Sitafood, Piatto, Loacker, Ferrero, Hilton, the Social Kitchen and La Casa Cubana.

The Cuisine Week is a joint initiative by the Italian ministries of foreign affairs and agriculture to promote the Italian culture everywhere in the world through the country's foreign missions.

Consul General Martini emphasized: "In this Street Food Festival we want to show that Italian food is not only fancy food, but it is also street food that suits every budget. This was an important event for all of our diplomatic representation in the world because we want to promote Italian food, ingredients, products, chefs, recipes and culture,"

Martini added: "Our main goal as the minister of foreign affairs noted is to help promote Italian food through economic diplomacy to increase our exports in the food sector to 50 billion euros by 2020."

US Consul General Matthias Mitman expressed his joy while visiting the festival. "I think this is a wonderful event and the food is excellent. They got a wide variety from pizza to pasta and all of them excellent. I love Italian food and I eat it regularly. Actually the Italian food is one of the most popular types of food for Americans. Pizza is widely popular everywhere in the United States," he said.

Sarah Qamar of Arabica Coffee Magazine said: "We are here to promote coffee culture in Saudi Arabia. This festival is good. It has a lot of new vendors and a lot of new companies and many interesting people."