Tradition and history converge in this gastronomic festival in Warsaw to take place this weekend (January 25 & 26) at the Place of Culture & Science. As we approach the feast before the fast, the Polish capital welcomes the carnival by celebrating its culinary diversity with Jedz Pij Warszawo!
The programme features live cooking and tastings, a cornucopia of snacks and delicacies, culinary and cocktail workshops, meetings with top chefs, sommeliers and bartenders, a WEGE WAWA zone and a festival market. The menu also includes shows, lectures and debates on the topic of food & drink.
Culture and identity are strongly shaped by gastronomy. Food, its consumption and production, trends and practices, history and traditions, are at the base of many collective identities and play a role in shaping lifestyles in moderns societies. Modern cities take pride in the food that is served at home, catered in restaurants, offered in the streets, whether it is local, international or fusion. Food festivals and culinary events such as Taste of London, Madrid Fusion, Prague Food Festival, Copenhagen Cooking, Oktoberfest Munich, help promote cities and their heritage by attracting tourists and visitors and underlining a narrative of local pride.
Eat & Drink Warsaw! is not the exception. Its name and narrative are connected to the historic and legendary “Cooking and food exhibition” from 1902, when next to Vienna and Frankfurt, Warsaw was one of the first places to celebrate the culinary arts in Europe.
The event aims to show how gastronomic habits and preferences have changed in the course of a century. Guests will get to experience the atmosphere of cult bars and restaurants of the 1920s and 1930s in Warsaw. During the talk “A taste of PRL” organised by Bartosz Węglarczyk, guests will have the chance to hear about the bohemian lifestyle of those years from culture and stage celebrities.
“To show the true face of Warsaw’s culinary traditions is one of the goals of the Festival. Our kitchen in historical terms is a really fascinating adventure. It is worth to see how it has changed over the years and try dishes and drinks that are a real showcase of the Polish capital. This is a unique opportunity to get to know the culinary past, but also a modern facet of ours city and new trends on the gastronomy market.” – Grzegorz Mazur Manager of the conservation works at the Wilanów Palace Museum (festival partner).
Come, Sense, Taste
The festival area will be divided into several thematic zones:
