NEWS RELEASE                                                                                                   9 May 2002 

CAPE GOURMET FESTIVAL KICKS OFF AT RIEBEECK SQUARE 

The Grand Opening of the internationally renowned Cape Gourmet Festival will feature a culinary treasure trove of local cuisine styles and flavours all relating to the diverse cultural history of the Cape. 

The event is being staged on Riebeek Square on Sunday 12 May from 10 o’clock and will involve restaurants from Bo-Kaap, District Six, Langa, Gugulethu, Crossroads, Khayelitsha, the West Coast and the Boland, offering a huge variety of traditional dishes from Malay to Boerekos, from maize samp to  waterblommetjie bredie and more. 

The Grand Opening on Riebeeck Square will also feature a host of activities, demonstrations and entertainment for the whole family. 

“The Gourmet Festival’s Grand Opening is being supported by the City on the grounds that this happening at Riebeeck Square puts a unique Cape Gourmet experience within the reach of practically everyone and will reveal a whole range of local restaurants to gourmands and prospective gourmands” said Head of the City of Cape Town’s Special Events Office, Pat Lennox. 

The Cape Gourmet festival is one of the most visible and most public citywide happenings being endorsed this year by the ‘Cape of Great Events’ and as such is a guaranteed to be of a particularly high standard of excellence. 

Riebeek Square has, since early settler times, been recognised as a thoroughfare and marketplace and an important crossroads for the cultures that have come to make up the fabric of the Mother City. 

The festival’s Grand Opening is likely to attract a great deal of interest from foreign visitors in the city at the moment and many who will come especially for the festival.

“The Festival is an excellent shop window to expose unique South African wines, cuisine and innovative culinary talent to a wider international audience. It’s a first class vehicle for local businesses and service providers in the hospitality and tourism industries to showcase their wares,” said Executive Committee Member for Economic Development, Tourism and Property Management for the City of Cape Town, Councillor Kent Morkel.

“The Festival helps extend the visitor season and inevitably, this will have a beneficial effect on tourism, export and trade promotion and certainly on improving job creation and socio-economic development prospects in the city.”

As Sunday 12 May is also Mothers Day, elements of the Grand Opening will focus on family groups and especially mothers in the crowd, via music, dance and song, as Riebeek Square comes alive with stalls, bunting and the sights, sounds and tastes of the Cape’s exciting and diverse culinary heritage.

The Events Office website at www.capetownevents.co.za is bright and innovative and well worth a visit.

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