10th World Week of Italian Cuisine prelaunch brings a taste of Sicily to Budapest – photos

Budapest’s Casa Pomo d’Oro – part restaurant, part culinary stage – was awash with the scent of Nubia garlic, sun-drenched tomatoes and freshly ground cinnamon on Tuesday morning, as Sicilian chef Maria Piera Spagnolo took over the kitchen for a live cooking demonstration. The event, hosted at Gianni Annoni’s well-known restaurant in the Hungarian capital, marked the lead-up to the 10th edition of World Week of Italian Cuisine.

Chef Piera Spagnolo, who helms Ristorante Tha’am in San Vito Lo Capo, brought a taste of the Mediterranean to the Hungarian capital, serving up fish couscous and stories from the Sicilian coast. 

The upcoming 10th World Week of Italian Cuisine

In attendance were Giuseppe Scognamiglio, Italy’s recently appointed ambassador to Hungary, and Giovanna Chiappini Carpena, director of the Italian Trade Agency’s Budapest office, which organised the event. In a brief address, Carpena pointed to this year’s theme – health, tradition and innovation – as a guiding thread for the week ahead, with further events planned across Hungary as part of the global culinary celebration.

The upcoming 10th World Week of Italian Cuisine is a particularly significant edition, not only because it marks a decade of celebrating culinary heritage, but also because there are ongoing discussions about whether Italian cuisine itself might soon be recognised by UNESCO as part of the World Heritage.

Since its launch in 2016, the World Week of Italian Cuisine initiative has led to more than 10,000 events across over 100 countries – from cooking demonstrations and conferences to masterclasses, cultural gatherings and promotional showcases. The November events, Chiappini Carpena added, will highlight the country’s deep connection between food, well-being and identity.

Visit our dedicated section for more stories, features and updates related to Italy.

Gianni Annoni teams up with Chef Maria Piera Spagnolo

For Hungarians, Gianni Annoni needs little introduction. The Milan-born restaurateur, long a fixture of Budapest’s gastronomic scene, has spent years championing Italian cuisine through his restaurants and television appearances. His Casa Pomo d’Oro is not just a restaurant but a small embassy of Italian cuisine.

On this occasion, Annoni was joined by Chef Maria Piera Spagnolo, whose restaurant Tha’am (“food” in Arabic dialect) sits just a few metres from the turquoise waters of San Vito Lo Capo. There, she prepares traditional dishes with a distinctly Sicilian identity. Chef Piera Spagnolo’s passion for cooking, she told the audience, was passed down by her mother, who taught her that food is “a story told with the hands.”

From the Maghreb to Sicily: the journey of cous cous

Cùscusu, as it’s known in Sicilian dialect, is a dish born of centuries-old exchange – an Arab legacy from Sicily’s medieval past, adopted and adapted by coastal communities in Trapani. In time, lamb and Mediterranean fish replaced chickpeas, and the dish became a local staple.

It was, as Chef Piera Spagnolo suggested, a symbol of Sicily’s crossroads identity.

“The cuisine of the poor,” added Annoni, “is often the richest.”

Making Sicilian cous cous, we were told, is not for the hurried. It requires time, rhythm and touch. “You must hold the floury mixture as you’d hold a woman’s breast,” Chef Piera Spagnolo quipped, gently shaping the semolina with her hands.

The final dish – San Vito Lo Capo cous cous with mixed fish, almonds, cinnamon, garlic, onion, parsley and chilli – was a masterclass in balance. Cinnamon, she insisted, is non-negotiable. “It’s not sweet here; it gives depth.”

San Vito Lo Capo’s famous cous cous fest

As she stirred, Chef Piera Spagnolo turned to San Vito Lo Capo’s Cous Cous Fest—an unlikely culinary summit held each September in her tiny fishing village. Launched in 1998 under the slogan “Make Cous Cous, Not War,” the festival set out with a disarmingly simple goal: to use food as a force for unity.

Since then, it has drawn chefs from more than 20 countries, becoming a fixture on Italy’s cultural calendar and a symbol of Mediterranean pluralism. Now in its 27th year, the event is internationally recognised for promoting dialogue through cuisine.

Cous cous, declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2019, serves here as more than a meal. It is a gesture of hospitality that cuts across religion, language and border.

San Vito Lo Capo, Chef Piera Spagnolo said with quiet pride, is home to just 2,000 people. “But during the festival,” she added, “it becomes the world’s kitchen.”

Tales and traditions from Sicily

Between stirring pots and fielding questions, Chef Piera Spagnolo spoke of Sicily’s deep Arab roots, which is still visible in its language, its buildings, and its food.

She shared the legend of the Teste di Moro, the ceramic heads seen on balconies and in courtyards across the island. The story is as striking as the pottery itself: a beautiful Sicilian woman falls for a Moor. When she learns he has a wife back home, she has him beheaded in a jealous rage and plants basil in his skull. The herb flourishes, and neighbours begin crafting their own versions in terracotta.

Today, the paired faces – one Sicilian, one Moorish – stand as icons of passion, revenge, and the tangled histories that have shaped the island.

Food, heritage and a hint of Dolce Vita

As the cooking drew to a close, Italy’s newly appointed Ambassador, Giuseppe Scognamiglio, rose to give a brief toast. He reflected on his country’s long history of hardship, from war and poverty to waves of migration, and the resilience born from it. “It gave us many treasures,” he said, “and one of them is cous cous.” Then, casting an eye towards the table, he added: “But now, I’d rather eat than talk.”

The tasting began. The cous cous was Sicilian simplicity at its best. Between mouthfuls, Annoni reflected on the rhythms of Italian life. “We’re not late,” he said. “We just live differently.”

La dolce vita, he explained, is not about indulgence but patience. If someone is late, you sit. You watch the light move across a church wall. And you wait.

Talk turned to the future of Italian cuisine and growing calls for its recognition by UNESCO as a cultural treasure in its own right. “It would be fitting,” Annoni said.

“Because Italian food isn’t only technique or tradition. It’s memory. It’s land. And it’s the joy of being together.”

Cous cous and connection

For Daily News Hungary, the morning at Casa Pomo d’Oro was not just a preview of the 10th World Week of Italian Cuisine. It was a reminder that even the simplest grain of cous cous reflects a way of life – one that values time, connection, and the passing down of knowledge from hand to hand, kitchen to kitchen, and nation to nation.

We now look ahead to the upcoming 10th World Week of Italian Cuisine, which will take place from 21 to 28 November. Throughout the month, the Italian Trade Agency in Budapest will share insights and background on Italian gastronomy on its Facebook and Instagram channels, highlighting the cultural, nutritional and innovative values that define it. Thanks to a collaboration with Mindmegette.hu, audiences in Hungary will also have the chance to discover more about Chef Maria Piera Spagnolo and her cuisine online.

Explore our photo gallery below:

Read our next story: Heated debate between Russia and Italy after collapse of symbolic medieval tower in Rome – video