Gastronomy and cuisines of the world led by refugees

The city of Madrid hosts one of the venues for the “Con Los Refugiados” Gastronomic Festival, which is held in parallel in different European cities.

With the desire to help change society’s perception of refugee status, the restaurants participating in the gastronomic days will entrust refugees to their kitchens for a few days to discover the best of the kitchens of their places of origin.

It is a different way of approaching cooks and chefs from countries where armed conflicts have forced them to emigrate and in many cases this condition of “without a homeland” makes them more vulnerable in the host society, especially from the perspective labor.

The festival is a magnificent, supportive and above all collaborative platform for these professional chefs, and supports them in their possibilities of finding stable employment, which was born in France years ago as a movement to help refugees for their social insertion.

For this European edition, there are venues in Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Lille, Florence, Madrid, Amsterdam, Brussels and Athens. In Italy its participation is limited to stores Eataly from Rome, Bari and Milan.

Madrid joins the gastronomic and solidarity initiative

The Gastronomic Festival #WithRefugees will be held in unison in the cities described above during the days of June 19 to 25, and will bring together a chromatic amalgam of smells, flavors and good taste in the figures of the kitchens of Syria, Ukraine, Morocco and Cameroon .

The event, which will be held this year for the first time in Spain, is supported and endorsed by the refugee aid agency known as UNHCR, the NGO Food Sweet Food, and the Madrid for Refugees volunteer association, who are in charge of the organization of the festival in the Spanish capital.

Nine restaurants in the city dress up and join the fifty who share initiative in Europe, adding to their usual menus, new dishes designed and created by chefs from countries suffering from refugee status.

A Festival of world cuisines, in the hands of refugee Chefs, which gives an opportunity to showcase culinary talent and skills, and facilitate their integration into the professional market.