Its curatorial lens moves across scales, from the intimate to the infrastructural, and brings together voices that challenge hierarchy, celebrate emerging practices, and experiment with new formats for thinking, making, and sharing. It embraces contradiction and complexity. It values critique as much as joy. It honors tradition without being bound by it. And above all, it treats food as a medium of cultural, environmental, and creative urgency. It is a festival for those who are not only working with food, but working through it.
Disrupting the Table positions What The Food 2025 as a space to rethink the systems, values, and assumptions that underpin how people eat, cook, and connect through food. This edition takes a clear stance: it is not here to preserve the status quo. It is here to ask harder questions about who holds knowledge, what defines innovation, and how food can respond to a rapidly shifting world. Food is no longer just about taste or trend. It is about systems, supply, storytelling, and survival.
What The Food is a dynamic gathering of leaders, creators, and changemakers driving the future of food. Now in its third year and taking place over two days, the event is a platform for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and actionable strategies. From breakthrough technologies to
The first day of the program features a keynote talk, panel discussions, and interactive workshops examining how innovation can drive more sustainable practices across the supply chain from production and sourcing to consumption and waste reduction. Participants gain valuable insights into circular food economies, regenerative agriculture, alternative proteins, and smart technologies shaping the future of food.
Blending interactive sessions with forward- looking panel discussions, the second day of the program highlights emerging technologies and their real-world applications. Through frank conversations and detailed demonstrations, industry leaders explore bold ideas that aim to prepare everyone for what is next.
The curator, Cláudia de Brito, was born to Portuguese-Cape Verdean parents in Singapore, raised in Dubai, and educated in London. She has covered hospitality and travel for nearly two decades as the editor of several publications including Caterer Middle East and Hotelier Middle East and as a contributor to Condé Nast Traveller Middle East, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, and Hotel & Catering News. In 2021, she was appointed Gulf Academy Chair for MENA’s 50 Best Restaurants and is the Middle East Academy Vice Chair for the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Cláudia is a freelance journalist, content creator, curator, and hospitality consultant based in Dubai.
