Gourmet With A Cause kicks off 2018 Food Fete

The next few weeks is slated to be jampacked with culinary events — the start of which was on Saturday with Gourmet With A Cause, the kickoff event for the 2018 BVI Food Fete.

Saturday’s event, which was held at Government House in Road Town, featured local chefs, as well as international chefs from Brazil, and Miami in the United States.

Among the featured culinarians were student chefs for the H Lavity Stoutt Community College’s Culinary Institute.

The proceeds from Saturday’s event will be used help restore the institute which was badly battered during the September 2017 hurricanes.

“In the past few years, what we’ve done is we’ve raised money to give students whose gotten the highest averages in tourism — a grant or a scholarship. This year, because of the damage that the culinary institute suffered during the storm, we felt it was a fitting tourism initiative to help to repair the culinary programme and get it to a different level,” explained Director of the BVI Tourist Board, Sharon Flax-Brutus.

In usual fashion, the BVI Food Fete will include feature events on all four main islands.

The Taste of Tortola event will be happening next Saturday on the territory’s main island. Things will move on to the island of Jost Van Dyke for the Jost Pork Festival. A Taste of Virgin Gorda will follow before Food Fete culminates with its crowning event — the Lobster Fest on Anegada.

This year’s Food Fete has also been fitted with educational culinary programmes, Flax-Brutus said.

“We not only showcase culinary for our guests but we educate our youngsters because we want them to be future culinarians and be in hospitality. So we have some of the visiting chefs doing educational programmes with them talking about the importance of culinary and, who knows, we can even have our very own celebrity chef in the BVI.”

She further told BVI News: “What Id like the public to know is that our activities are not for visitors alone. We want residents of the BVI to come out and support the restaurants that are participating in all of our events, we want them to support our homegrown chefs and we want them to support culinary as a whole in the BVI.”