CEBU -- This year's Cebu Food and Wine Festival concluded with much food and fanfare, setting a high benchmark for food festivals to follow.

The closing ceremonies were held at Coral, the JPark Hotel and Resort's beachside restaurant, which hosted a 10-hands dinner with chefs Keith Curitana from Los Tacos MNL, Andrew Malarky from Wild Siargao, Daniel Johnston from Crimson Mactan, Edward Bugia from MImi and Bros and Sharwin Tee.

“A festival’s main goal is to provide a place for visitors to go. In this case to taste and understand the region’s food,” remarked Kate Dychangco-Anzani, chairperson of the Cebu Food and Wine Festival.

The two-week festival did just that as it brought foodies around Cebu and Mactan on culinary adventures.

The festival even caught the attention of international media with representatives from Hong Kong, China, South Korea, and even a documentarian from Amazon flying in for the event.

Anzani attributed this to the attention Filipino cuisine has been getting as of late, particularly the winners of the James Beard Award.

Here are 5 insights and highlights of the recently concluded event, according to Anzani:

1. The festival is meant to benefit the hospitality industry as a whole

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It was indeed brave for the Cebu Food and Wine Festival to start out in the middle of a raging pandemic amid lockdowns and restrictions back in 2020.

Looking back, the current stakeholders recalled that the first one was a series of initiatives to get Cebu's food entrepreneurs, restaurants, and hotels back on their feet. These ranged from directly linking farmers and suppliers to F&B customers via outdoor markets to promoting to the public that these establishments were open for business.

This year, the festival hosted 27 chefs from all over the country, with one flying in as far as Dubai. It takes an island to stage an event like this and the committee is grateful to all of their stakeholders, hotels and even Cebu Pacific, who allocated flights and seats to bring in the media, the chefs, and their teams.

2. Collaborative dinners and first-time events

Judging from the 2023 festival calendar, there were so many must-go food events. These ranged from guest chefs gracing Cebu hotels such as Reggie Aspiras’ buffet at Radisson Blu Cebu; collaborative dinners with first-time culinary dream teams like the Chele Gonzalez and Myke Tatung in Crimson Mactan, the sustainable six-hands with Marco Anzani, Happy Ongpauco-Tiu, and Miko Aspiras; the 24-Hands Megaworld dinner La Meza Dinner to celebrate Belmont Hotel Mactan; and even a Mactan Wine Cruise by AWC with wine paired with food from chefs of Sheraton Mactan, Shangri-La Mactan, Crimson Mactan and JPark Hotel and Resort.

It's going to be interesting how next year’s festival will outdo these.

3. Helping out the Department of Tourism

The Department of Tourism’s “Tatak Pinoy” food tourism initiative was supplemented by food stamps inspired by initiatives in neighboring ASEAN countries like Thailand where regional delicacies are documented as reference recipes.

From the opening ceremonies and events throughout the festival, several Cebuano dishes from the popular like balbacua and lechon to the more obscure such as the liver-forward tuslob buwa and pinaputok na keso were served, archived, and promoted to festival-goers. While some of the entrees had a modern twist, the base recipes were taken into consideration.

An example of this was chef Sharwin Tee's dish during the clsong dinner -- Inasal prawns with XO cream and bud bud kabog, ground corn which is predominantly used in Cebu instead of rice.

Besides food stamping, the DOT was on the look out for modern world-class Filipino food and the chefs that produced them for upcoming state dinners.

4. The festival extended outside Cebu

The festival stretched out into the Visayas with an event organized by Wild Siargao chef Andrew Malarky who partnered with chef Maggie Agenarr of The FRMCY. They organized a 30-seat dinner under the stars at the Food and Fables restaurant of The Fox and The Firefly Resort beside the Loboc River in Bohol. The highlight of the dinner was the live station and Malarky pulling out some fresh wood to reveal tamilok (woodworms) which he prepared ceviche-style that got his diners talking.

“You know food is communal. It's not just a matter of sitting down and getting your place. I want people engaging. I want interaction and we're talking. I want people to remember you,” he said.

Malarky is set to organize a kinilaw festival in Dumaguete to showcase the undiscovered talent in that city in the near future.

5. Manila, Ilocos, Davao will have festivals of their own

With the template set by Cebu Food and Wine Festival, the DOT is rolling similar events around the country,

Expect more food events, culinary collaborations and food stamps as the Manila Food and Wine Festival kicks off on Friday, July 14, and will have supplementary events until November. The Manila leg will have satellite events in nearby provinces extending out to Tagaytay and Antipolo.

Following later in the year are the Ilocos Food and Wine Festivalslated to kick off in September, and another one in Davao in October.

"The end goal is to take in the country's best in order to hopefully present a Philippine food market where visitors can come and access all provinces in one space," Anzani said.