The Culinary Institute of America opens its 28th annual Worlds of Flavor® International Conference and Festival on November 4 in Napa, Calif., spotlighting the cuisines and culinary cultures of Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The three-day event, running through November 6 at the CIA at Copia, is designed to translate those traditions into practical applications for working chefs and foodservice operators across every segment of the industry.
The Lineup
The conference draws a broad roster of internationally recognized talent. Food ethnographer and author Khir Johari and Naoyuki Yanagihara, PhD, of the Yanagihara School of Traditional Japanese Cuisine in Tokyo will open the event with a survey of the cultural frameworks underlying East and Southeast Asian cooking. Chef and restaurateur Esther Choi of Mŏkbar in New York City — also the host of Cooking with Choi on Food Network's YouTube channel — joins Monica Lee, founder of Beverly Soon Tofu in Los Angeles, for a session on how Korean comfort food has migrated from family tables to both coasts of the American restaurant market.
Other sessions lean into cross-segment application. Emily Lim, chef and founder of Dabao Singapore, and Alex Ong, director of culinary excellence at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will use the CIA at Copia's outdoor live-fire kitchen to demonstrate how Singaporean street-food techniques can scale to new audiences — a direct signal to college foodservice and contract operators looking to diversify their menus. Additional presenters include Kyle Connaughton of three-Michelin-starred SingleThread Farm Restaurant Inn; Ian Kittichai, chef and TV personality based in Bangkok; and Arnold Myint, chef and owner of International Market in Nashville, among more than a dozen others representing Vietnam, Japan, Korea, and Thailand.
Who Should Attend
Worlds of Flavor is explicitly open to a wide operator audience: independent and chain restaurants, K-12 and higher-education foodservice, contract management companies, and hospitality venues including hotels, resorts, casinos, and cruise lines. That breadth reflects the CIA's long-standing mission to move culinary intelligence across every channel of the food industry, not just fine dining — a priority covered extensively in our restaurant industry conference coverage.
"In recent years, restaurant guests are diving deeper into the flavors and dishes of these five countries, and seeking to understand the stories behind them," said Jennifer Breckner, director of programs and special projects at the CIA. "We've gathered a roster of renowned and rising-star chefs from coast to coast and around the globe, who will share the culture and cuisines of these countries to educate and inspire other chefs and foodservice operators."
On the evening of November 5, Top Chef fan favorite and cookbook author Chef Nini Nguyen will host a multi-course pop-up dinner and VIP meet-and-greet at the Grove restaurant at CIA at Copia, drawing from her debut cookbook Đặc Biệt: An Extra Special Vietnamese Cookbook. Her menu will continue at The Grove through November 8, giving conference attendees an extended opportunity to experience Vietnamese cuisine in a refined setting. The dinner is relevant context for operators tracking how cookbook-driven chef personalities are translating into experiential dining events — a growing format documented in our hospitality industry trend analysis.
For registrations and full session details, operators can visit worldsofflavor.com.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
