The Creole Food Festival is heading to Miami with an all women chef lineup

The Creole Food Festival is a unique experience that describes itself as the only food festival that connects Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, South America, and the South of the U.S. Showcasing Black and Brown chefs, the festival in past years has featured award-winning chefs who have appeared on Food Network and Bravo.

At any given series, you might stumble upon some Shrimp etouffee or Kreyol Jambalaya. The eclectic flavors truly touch many parts of the world.

“When people hear Creole, they usually think Haiti and New Orleans — that’s it.” Co-founder Fabrice Armand stated.

“And they keep on forgetting islands like St. Lucia, Martinique, and Guadeloupe. That’s one of the reasons why we created this because when we were doing our research, we realized that Creole is just food from the diaspora. So whether this was Senegal, Cameroon, Benin, or West Africa, which is where it originally came from and then went to the Caribbean. It’s also in Brazil and in Cape Verde. They call it criollo, crioulo, kriol, Kwéyòl. So that’s why if you notice in some of our stuff, we have different spellings of it, just so that people can identify” Armand said.

This immersive event has previously touched down in New York City and Atlanta. Marking its 5th anniversary, the festival will be hosting five activations in four cities. This year the series will be launching in Miami on March 18. The event will be hosted at the lavish and spacious Ancient Spanish Monastery located in the heart of Miami.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, for the first time, the chef lineup will be made up of all women. Armand added, “with the culinary industry being predominantly male and white, we were intentional about showcasing female chefs of color. We want to showcase the multicultural salad that Miami has to offer while celebrating what unites us through food.”

The lineup includes Food Network competition winners and judges along with other award winners. Christina Coupet (Haiti) , Airis Johnson (New Orleans), Cynthia Verna (Aka Chef Thia) (Haiti), Snegugu Kine (South Africa) and Amina Ly (West-Africa, French, Italian) will all be featured.

Early bird tickets are now available.

Jeff Dess is an editor for DETOUR, an award-winning educator, best-selling author and notable public speaker who specializes in the areas of Learning and Development and culturally responsive education. As a public speaker and facilitator Jeff has reached over 100,000 learners. Jeff is an author of six books. We Wear Kicks to Works is an Amazon best-seller, which further explores the intersection of pop culture, leadership, and education.

This story was originally published January 31, 2023 at 7:28 PM with the headline "The Creole Food Festival is heading to Miami with an all women chef lineup."