Mauritius, an African island nation with French heritage, has invited two Hanoi chefs to attend a festival of Vietnamese cooking from May 11 to 24 to demonstrate the Asian’s country culinary.

Pham Thanh Son and Tran Quyet Thang.

The Hanoi Press Club’s Pham Thanh Son and Tran Quyet Thang will show the art of Vietnamese cooking at food and beverage outlets of the Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel in Port Louis, according to the club.

Marcel Isaak, the club’s executive chef, said, “I can’t think of better emissaries than Son and Thang. They both have an intuitive and a learned sense of what goes into great Vietnamese dishes.”

“They’re incredibly fluent in communication of Vietnamese food as one of the world’s healthiest and tastiest cuisines,” he added.

Diners at the Labourdonnais in Port Louis will explore a daily Vietnamese buffet, according to the festival organizers.

The hotel is known for its food and wine festivals. The hotel regularly hosts chefs from various countries. This time, Vietnam will take center stage this May.

Twenty nine-year-old Son has worked at the Press Club since 2003. He has represented Vietnamese cuisines at food fairs in Singapore twice and Laos. Thang, 36, has worked at the club since its opening in 1997, and has also traveled to Singapore twice on food promotions.

The Press Club made debut in 1997, underwent an extensive refurbishment in 2008, coming back with a fresh new face and a complementary steakhouse menu.

In related news, Paris-based renowned cookbook author and food critic Patricia Wells plans to set up a cooking school in Vietnam next year. Late February and earlier this month, she made a culinary tour in the country to lay the groundwork for a series of cooking classes next year, to be conducted at the Nam Hai Resort in the central province of Quang Nam.

VietNamNet/SGGP