Taste of the Caribbean

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About Taste of the Caribbean
This is the one Caribbean food and beverage festival not to be missed; the one annual opportunity to network, polish professional skills and cheer on colleagues in competition, before a large audience of industry peers and consumer culinary enthusiasts.

But there's much more to it than that. Taste of the Caribbean provides education and inspiration through seminars, workshops, tastings and demonstrations, created to enhance performance, style and profitability in food and beverage operations.

The Taste of the Caribbean trade show is a unique, one-stop forum for gathering practical information, sampling, purchasing, strengthening established supplier relationships and meeting new vendors, all on hand to help Taste of the Caribbean registrants build food and beverage business – and yield benefits on the bottom line.

The road to Taste of the Caribbean starts in the Caribbean as each island holds individual competitions to select the 3 chefs, 1 pastry chef and 1 bartender that will make their national team. Excitement builds on island as the teams have local events where they practice for the competition.

At Taste of the Caribbean, a random drawing takes place where teams are assigned their competition spot, lunch or dinner. The competition is a hot food competition where the competitors cook and present food to be judged on taste as well as execution of skills and presentation. These competitions are somewhat larger in scope than cold food competitions, in that kitchen space is required, raw products and servers are provided. Hot food competition making use of a market basket is best in determining the skills required of Chefs and Cooks.

Ingredients for the basket (the provisions for the competition) are the same for each team and contents will not be revealed in advance. Each basket will include main items: meat, fish, poultry or game. Other items will be available in a community pantry.

Teams will have a set time in which to create and submit a menu, prepare and serve an appetizer, entrée and dessert which will be presented to conference attendees for tasting in the Restaurant of the Nations, the Taste of the Caribbean competition dining room.

While teams will work simultaneously in the competition kitchens, each team's work will include a work table with cutting boards and a wtove as well as other utensils. Teams are expected to maintain a clean, safe and efficient working environment throughout the competition.

After the meal has been served, national teams receive valuable detailed critiques of their performance and the dishes they prepared from competition officials.

Bartenders representing their individual countries will prepare a variety of drinks, demonstrating their creativity, bartending skills and personality.

There are three rounds of competition in the categories of Non-alcoholic, Vodka and Rum. Each bartender has fifteen minutes to prepare two portions of their favorite/signature drink. After presenting their two portions to the judges, they will prepare tasting portions for the public.

The top 4 bartenders will go on to compete for the honor of Caribbean Bartender of the Year. In the final round, they will have thirty minutes to review the contents of a mystery bar, and then to design and prepare a cocktail of their choice. No one will know what liquors or other items will be available in the mystery bar until the competition begins.

Click here to view the Taste of the Caribbean Hall of Fame