©Refugee Food Festival

As the refugee chefs take over the restaurants’ kitchens, they endorse the responsibility of pleasing the guests. It is therefore towards them that most of your efforts will be focused.

If you’ve decided to organise a Refugee Food Festival it is probably because your city is currently hosting refugees! The network of associations and institutions within your city is the most likely to be helpful in your identification of chefs. With support from the UNHCR we will help you identify local actors who have the potential to put you in contact with the future chefs of the Festival.

Before selecting the chefs for the Festival, organise a meeting with them during which you’ll learn more about their background, their experience and their motivations. It is also an opportunity for you to explain the project in details and to answer their questions should they have any. This meeting often goes along with a trial run: you can give the chef the option to cook one or several dishes of his choosing. At this stage you will need to evaluate their experience as accurately as possible in order to be able to offer them the appropriate support. Chefs with the least experience will potentially need more time for their mise en place for example (see the section on matching and support).