Cairns Italian Festival: La Festa food and wine at Fogarty Park
Two major events this weekend will take Far Northerners on a cultural tour of Italy. WHAT’S ON OFFER
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A CAIRNS park will be transformed into a ‘Little Italy’ this weekend – taking our tastebuds on a voyage of discovery around authentic regional flavours.
The Cairns Italian Festival runs from July 28 to August 6 with the main event expected to deliver a cultural feast on Saturday from 11am at Fogarty Park.
Festival food co-ordinator Angelo Aurelio said organisers have gone to great lengths to make sure the La Festa - Food and Wine day represents Italy.
“What we have done is there’s approximately 28 food vendors – 20 of them will be representing a region of Italy,” he said.
“Each of them will be cooking a traditional or classical meal from that region or a couple.
“The majority of our vendors are local restaurant owners or cafe owners and most of them are immigrants from Italy here to Cairns.”
Mr Aurelio said there was something special about the food going to be represented.
“Some of the food you won’t find in restaurants, you will only find at the festival,” he said.
While he wanted to keep the food a surprise, Mr Aurelio said he could provide a small insight into what to expect.
“One of the meals is called bombette pugliesi from the region Puglia,” he said.
“It’s grilled pork neck stuffed with cacio cavallo (a cheese from that region), pancetta, parsley and garlic.”
Mr Aurelio also teased a dessert which will be on offer called granita, which is like a slushy.
“The guys are going to make it there in front of everyone,” he said.
“It’s a lemon iced dessert refreshment from the island of Sicily.
“People don’t have to fly to Italy, to go all that way to eat the food, it’s all right in Cairns.”
Committee president Steve Cordenos said there will be a range of entertainment including live bands from Melbourne and Sydney.
“It will look fantastic. We have a colosseum entry to Fogarty Park. I just think they will be blown away at how Fogarty Park will look,” he said.
“We’ve gone to huge effort to dress it up. We have opera singers, fireworks. They will get to experience the real culture of Italy.”
On Sunday from 2pm the festival schedule will change gears with La Dolce Vita - Cocktails and Ferraris at Salt House.
“Campari is making a special cocktail for our event called a Ferrari cocktail,” he said.
“There will be pizzas served, an array of food. Pizzas, cars, it’s a whole different event on Sunday.”
La Festa tickets cost $17.90 for adults, $5.50 for kids 5-16, free for ages 0-4.
Cocktails and Ferraris tickets costs $12.21.
All the festival events and ticket details can be found at cairnsitalianfestival.com.au
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Originally published as Cairns Italian Festival: La Festa food and wine at Fogarty Park
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