The Refugee Food Festival is a culinary event, which gives refugee chefs access to restaurants’ kitchens in order to showcase their skills.

By showcasing the talents, skills and cuisines from their home countries, the Festival seeks to debunk the negative image of the refugee status. This event is grounded in the conviction that food is a powerful means to social and professional integration. It mobilises skilled chefs, who have all bet on using their culinary skills to facilitate their integration in their host country. The Festival aspires to mobilise a community of committed volunteers and restaurateurs in different countries, who take on the mission to support the professional integration of refugees in the food industry. Each Refugee Food Festival is a platform for the chefs.

A Refugee Food Festival can take place anywhere, a big capital or a small city; and can mobilise from one to tens of restaurants in a given city.

A global Refugee Food Festival takes place every year, on World Refugee Day, around the 20th of June, simultaneously in different cities across the globe: the next edition in June 2017 will take place among others in Paris, Brussels, Madrid, Amsterdam, Florence, Athens, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lille & Lyon !
The Refugee Food Festival can also take place on a more regular basis all year long, depending on local cultural agendas.
Do you live in another city and wish to organise a festival in June? Please get in touch with us through this page!

The first edition of the Refugee Food Festival has created concrete employment opportunities for the participating chefs. Along with this toolkit, we are also developing a web platform (Refugee Food Stories) aiming at facilitating access to employment for all refugee chefs that have participated in a Refugee Food Festival by putting forward their backgrounds and their talents.