Kita Food Festival Celebrates Culinary Excellence in Malaysia and Singapore

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Food enthusiasts can celebrate as the Kita Food Festival returns to Malaysia and Singapore for its fourth edition. The festival begins in Kuala Lumpur from September 4 to 8, followed by Singapore from January to March 2025. This annual event highlights Southeast Asia’s burgeoning culinary scene, featuring top chefs and industry leaders from the region. Attendees can enjoy Four Hand Dinners, Kitchen Takeovers, a Big Sunday Barbecue, and engaging thought leadership events within the food and beverage industry.

This year, the Kuala Lumpur Weekender will unveil “A Food Affair” on September 7, an evolution from its Kita Conversations symposium focusing on innovation and leadership in food. This full-day event will feature keynote speakers and fireside talks by food experts across the region, interactive masterclasses in food, wine, and beverages, and a lively marketplace showcasing artisanal foods and local produce from farms and producers.

In Singapore, Kita Conversations will collaborate with Synthesis, a creative data firm specializing in Open Source Intelligence to forecast future food trends. Synthesis’ recent report, “Menu 2033: The Future of Food,” utilizes computer modeling and analytical techniques to simulate possible future food scenarios, which they then prepare and present to diners. The Kita Conversations series will commence with three seminars in January and February, delving into topics such as sustainable sourcing in a resource-constrained world, maximizing food resources to meet global demand, and exploring alternative food crops. These seminars will culminate in a large symposium aiming to gather 350–400 F&B professionals, educators, and enthusiasts for a day of keynote presentations and industry discussions.

The Kita Food Festival was conceived by Darren Teoh, chef patron of Malaysia’s only two-Michelin star restaurant Dewakan; Leisa Tyler, food journalist and owner of Singapore-based farm-to-table company Weeds & More; and Adrian Yap, founder of Tiffin Culinary and Freeform, pioneering F&B-centric pop-up events in Malaysia. The festival aims to showcase Southeast Asia’s evolving culinary landscape and foster a new generation of talent by connecting them with chefs, producers, and industry innovators.

Since its inception in 2021, the Kita Food Festival has expanded to include various Malaysian destinations such as Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Langkawi, and Kuching, in addition to Singapore. Each year, the festival reaffirms its commitment to community and collective progress, embodying its name ‘Kita’, meaning ‘Us’ or ‘We’ in Malay. By bringing together food enthusiasts, Kita Food Festival celebrates diversity and promotes the exchange of knowledge on sustainable food practices. More than just an event, Kita Food Festival is at the forefront of a movement towards a more interconnected and sustainable future for the food and beverage industry in Southeast Asia.

“For Kita’s next chapter, we aim to dig deeper into the narratives of local, innovation and sustainability. Malaysia will host guest chefs from across the Asian region, with dinners focusing on true farm to table relationships, or modernisations of a local cuisine, and masterclasses and talks exploring topics such as ancient fermentation techniques. The Singapore leg will be centred around the future of food globally, a nod to its growing status as an international city, but with its roots still very much in Southeast Asia,” commented Leisa Tyler, co-founder of Kita Food Festival, on this year’s festival. 

The Malaysian dining series will feature compelling storytelling and narrative-driven events, including Mystery Box menus that showcase local producers and terroir, as well as explorations into the rich cuisines of diverse cultures. The full lineup of dinners will be unveiled in late July. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s to come:

• Prin Polsuk from the acclaimed Samrub Samrub Thai in Bangkok, #29 on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2024, will present Southern Thai Fisherman cuisine at Raw Kitchen Hall. This unique casual dinner reflects the food security, diversity, and community-driven cuisine of the island natives of Southern Thailand.
• Ben Devlin of Pipit in Pottsville, a finalist for Regional Restaurant of the Year in Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Food Guide 2023 (New South Wales, Australia), will take over Yellow Fin Horse. He’ll prepare native Australian bush foods paired with Malaysian-grown vegetables, native fruits, and proteins.
• Hans Christian from August in Jakarta, #46 on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, returns to Kita Food Festival to showcase the emerging trend of New Nusantara cuisine at Akâr Dining alongside Aidan Low.
• A Food Affair will debut with keynote talks and masterclasses featuring Vanika Choudhary of Noon (Mumbai, India) and Ben Devlin of Pipit (New South Wales, Australia).
• The Big Sunday Barbecue, a Kita Food Festival tradition, will conclude the KL Weekender with culinary talents including Pete Smit of Dirty Supper (Singapore), Dewakan (Malaysia) with its 2-Michelin stars, and home cook sensation Anis Nabilah (Malaysia).

Else Retreats, a chic lifestyle property nestled in Kuala Lumpur’s vibrant Chinatown district, will serve as the culinary epicenter for the KL Weekender. It will host two dinners along with pre-festival activations and unveil special staycation packages by the end of July.

The festival has revived its young chef mentoring program, Kita Horizons, now in its third year and expanded in scope. In collaboration with Danish dairy company Arla Foods, Kita Horizons provides fifteen aspiring chefs with unprecedented access to various facets of the industry. In May, these young chefs participated in a full day of masterclasses led by mentors Jack Weldie of Chipta 11A, Lim Heng Kit of LI Restaurant and LOCUS, and Yavhin Siriwardhana of Nadodi. They also received a special presentation from Chef Grzegorz Odolak, Executive Chef of Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur, followed by an exclusive tour of the hotel’s kitchens and farm. The following day, they visited Natural Tropical Farm, Chocolate Concierge, and A Little Farm On The Hill to explore diverse farming methods. Armed with this newfound knowledge, the chefs are preparing for upcoming dining events that will challenge them to blend dairy products with local Southeast Asian flavors and ingredients. Their journey will culminate on September 8 with an exclusive Thank You Dinner, where they will showcase their skills using grade two vegetables and often overlooked cuts of meat.

This year’s Horizons programme continues to drive its vision of inspiring the next generation of ‘proudly Malaysian’ chefs. Furthermore, the programme hopes to inspire an appreciation for producers and manufacturers who play an integral role in the food chain. 

Director and co-founder of Kita Food Festival, Darren Teoh commented: “Kita Horizons stands as a beacon of change within our industry. The programme addresses critical disparities between emerging cooks and their culinary roots by fostering a deeper appreciation for food sourcing and cultivation.”