Hanoi Culinary Culture Festival 2025 highlights cuisine as key cultural industry driver

THE HANOI TIMES — The Hanoi Culinary Culture Festival will take place from December 19 to December 21 at Thong Nhat Park in Hai Ba Trung Ward, featuring a wide range of attractions.

The event offers an opportunity to celebrate Hanoi’s culinary culture, promote cuisine as an appealing cultural tourism product and contribute to the development of the capital’s cultural industry.

The festival follows the Hanoi People’s Committee’s policy on developing cultural industries in the capital for the 2021–2025 period, with orientations toward 2030 and a vision to 2045. Under this strategy, cuisine plays a key role in driving cultural industry growth.

According to Le Thi Anh Mai, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports, the festival provides a platform for culinary artisans to share their stories and connect with younger generations.

The main activities featured in the festival include seminars, workshops, artisan demonstrations and cooking competitions for students under the guidance of experienced artisans.

Artisans will demonstrate traditional skills such as wrapping banh chung, preparing a Bat Trang pottery village feast, making Tay Ho lotus tea, com (green rice), Phu Thuong sticky rice, cold snail noodle soup and producing candied fruits and jams.

The festival will feature 60 exhibition spaces showcasing Hanoi cuisine and regional specialties. These spaces will offer residents and visitors a wide range of distinctive dishes from Hanoi and other localities, honoring traditional culinary heritage and reinforcing the Hanoi Cuisine brand associated with elegance and refinement.

At the opening ceremony on the evening of December 19, the organizing committee will announce the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s decision to include “the knowledge of processing and enjoying La Vong grilled fish” on the national intangible cultural heritage list.

Visitors will have the chance to meet members of the Doan family and hear the story of six generations who have preserved and developed this iconic dish, which holds a special place in the hearts of Hanoians.

Deputy Director Mai of the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports said recognition on the national intangible cultural heritage list honors heritage values and provides an effective approach to protecting, promoting.

“The event transforms heritage into assets for sustainable cultural industry development and supports the local economy.”

Speaking to The Hanoi Times about the role of cuisine in cultural industry development, PhD Dang Van Bai, Vice Chairman of the National Cultural Heritage Council, said 81% of tourists are willing to spend money to experience a destination’s culinary culture.

“This figure shows that cuisine serves as a powerful tourism product that plays a major role in promoting Hanoi’s cultural industry and shaping national cultural identity,” he said.

At the festival, residents and visitors can enjoy artistic performances such as circus acts, folk singing, street shows and art combining traditional and modern elements.

The event will also feature a photo exhibition of 40–50 works promoting Vietnamese culture, tourism and cuisine, along with a mobile book exhibition presenting 200 titles on culture, art, tourism and food.

Shimamura Masafumi, Marketing Director of Acecook Vietnam Joint Stock Company, said that in November 2025, Acecook Vietnam signed a five-year strategic cooperation agreement with the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports and Kinh te & Do thi (Economic & Urban) Newspaper.

The partnership aims to preserve and promote Vietnamese culinary culture, with pho, a symbol of national cuisine, selected as the focal point. The plan targets broad promotion, gradual recognition of pho as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage and wider international outreach.

He added that the partners are working on a long-term, systematic plan to achieve these goals, including Acecook Vietnam’s participation in promoting Hanoi pho at this year’s festival.