Mérida, Yucatán — The second edition of the Club Sibarita festival will offer dinners, tastings, conferences and other activities to the White City’s most enthusiastic gastronomes.
The festival, Feb. 21-23, is more than about a good dinner. It encompasses the satisfaction that comes from a Latin American after-dinner ritual that nearly has been forgotten.
The ritual, called sobremesa, has no English translation. It is the relaxing period right after a meal when family and friends share conversations or anecdotes. Plates are cleared, but the table is still full with coffee, wine and other drinks — and it can last hours.
“As a club, we seek to promote this topic that we are passionate about: the memories of after-dinner. We realize that day by day, we can not spend so much time and sometimes we need pretexts like this, dinners where you will eat, but also to learn and live together,” said Jean-Philippe Gillot.
“Club Sibarita is born from the organization of monthly gastronomic events, such as dinners and tastings. After having done different activities for a couple of years, our friend Ricardo Muñoz Zurita approached us and proposed the idea of turning it into a festival,” Gillot said at a press conference, where he shared the podium with his partner, Carolina Molina, the mastermind behind the concept.
More than 40 chefs, both national and foreign, are part of the agenda: Atzin Santos, Olivier Deboise, Jonatan Gomez Luna, Cristian Bravo, Regina Escalante, Eduardo Moralli, Fernanda Covarrubias, Darren Walsh, Martha Ortiz and David Mueller.
“Something very important about the festival is that both Carolina and I want to make sure that the attendees have a totally satisfactory experience, so for a whole year we were visiting cities in Mexico and Canada to meet the chefs who would be part of the festival,” says Gillot.
Traditional cuisine will form a key part of this edition through various activities, including an inaugural meal at the Chable Resort, in which food lovers will appreciate the union in the kitchen of five chefs and five traditional cooks. Both parties will work as a team to present a dish with traditional technique but without having to be typical.
Conferences include gastronomic entrepreneurs Tere Cazola and Maru Medina, as well as a keynote by chef Martha Ortiz, the festival’s guest of honor.
Attendees can extend their stay in Yucatán through the festival’s alliance with the Mayan Heritage tourism company.
For the complete agenda visit the Club Sibarita website.
