Pens and diaries (if you are the more conventional type) or smartphones and tablets at the ready: now mark in red the five days of HostMilano, being held this year at the Fieramilano fairground in Rho from Friday 23rd to Tuesday 27th October, because, this is time, the International Hospitality Exhibition has prepared a densely-packed program of varied events.
A packed program of international appointments
This time,Host2015 has come up with a full package of world-class events. Starting with EXIHS – Excellent Italian Hospitality Services (Pav. 10), the “container of beauty”where you can experience a truly top-class welcome, designed by Studio Dante O. Benini & Partners Architects, making its comeback with a mood that is ever-more avant-garde and luxury-oriented. A workshop of new ideas and emotions, which interprets global trends and proposes them in a key that is unambiguous yet always different.
The four themes of the project, Mind, Work, Gym and Relax, start off as “non-places” but are filled with new stimuli which meet the needs of a new generation of luxury-class travelers: “I have described it as ‘nomadic, bohemian and luxurious,’–explains Architect Benini: “‘nomadic’because it’s about people who travel continuously all over the world; ‘bohemian’because these people love informality and can move effortlessly between informal business meetings to dinner by the pool in bare feet; ‘luxurious’, because they are constantly moving between business and leisure, and require really top-quality services which help them to convert time into well-being.”
The Gym are ahas a wellness/spa area, the Mind area becomes a boutique hotel, the Work area is divided into two corners, one of which is more traditional and the other ultra-technological, and the Relax area is based on the idea of a “multi-dining area”. Another new feature is the “green lung” in the form of a layout of plants and trees.
A project which follows not so much the evolution of the actual recipes and tastes, but rather the technologies which have dominated that evolution in the last few years, and imagining what the scenario will be like in the future. All this is to be found atIdentitàGolose Future (Pav. 4, Food Service Equipment), the event created in partnership with IdentitàGolose, Italy’s No. 1 event for starred international chefs. With3 appointments per day that will feature2 interpreters for each event (an expert on the subject who will illustrate it and a chef who will provide actual examples), show-cooking sessions and tastings will enable the participants to discover new machinery and processing techniques, and new ingredients that can be incorporated into traditional recipes.
“We want to drive home the idea of combining technologies with naturalness and taste,” commented Paolo Marchi, the man behind IdentitàGolose. “Innovative technologies are always an important factor, but creativeness will always be vital, in line with the philosophy of IdentitàGolose, which always puts the human factor first. An obvious example is pizza, cooked with increasingly new techniques but which maintain the authentic flavor.”
On the other hand, it’s increasingly evident that the kitchens of great chefs are workshops where not only innovative ideas are developed, but also techniques, technologies and hi-tech equipment. Just as, in Formula One, where the most advanced solutions tested on racing cars are later applied to cars built for the road, the future of cooking is created behind the scenes in Michelin-starred restaurants.
Another appointment with all the kudos of an international fair is “What it Takes to Be Great: WCE All-Stars”organized by WCE – World Coffee Events (Pav. 24). WCE will be bringing the winners of the 2015 World Coffee Championships, together with prestigious figures from the sector, to perform and talk about their experiences. The 2015 WCE coffee stars will participate in a series of interactive modules, including performances on request and visual demonstrations, all based on the various areas of expertise of the champion baristas: latte art, manual preparation, tasting and sensorial skills. The didactic modules, conducted by leading exponents from the sector, will focus on “what it takes to be great”and will cover such themes as: coffee design, coffee roasting, how to select raw materials, how to create a customer base and innovation.
Still on the theme of world championships, try not to miss the Cake Designer World Championship and The World Trophy of Pastry Ice Cream Chocolate promoted by FIP – the Italian Federation of Pastry, Ice-cream and Chocolate makers (Pav. 14, Gelato-Pastry) where Italy’s national pastry-making and cake-design team will compete with 30 other national teams in tests of artistic skill. The pastry chefs will compete in three categories: pastillage sugar sculpture and single ice-cream portion, chocolate and praline sculpture, and sugar sculpture and modern cake. The cake-design teams will have to demonstrate the various techniques that can be applied to sugar paste, which should reflect the tradition of the chef’s country and culture.
“Talking of trends,” commented Roberto Lestani, President of FIP and himself a World Champion Chocolate-maker, “the two championships will provide a unique chance to meet and compare cultures from different areas, and hear from some of the greatest international authorities, like Kristina Rado from Hungary or Lisa Mansour from the United States about cake design, Dewen Wang from China, or from Italy, the master of sculpture, Girolamo Brescia. At Host the synergy between the creativeness of the master chefs and the companies that produce the technologies, a field where Italy is acknowledged as a world leader, is very important.”
The following countries have already enrolled for the cake design contest: Ukraine, Sweden, Serbia, Russia, Italy, Spain, Venezuela, Switzerland, Norway, Japan, France, Hungary, Cuba, Tunisia, Peru, and the U.S.A.; those who have entered the World Trophy of Pastry, Ice cream and Chocolate are as follows: Italy, France, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Japan, Turkey, Poland, Algeria, Rumania, Mexico, Thailand, Austria, Tunisia, Chile and Peru. As a corollary to the championships, the master chefs present will give demonstrations of their artistic skill.
One of the main players at Host2015 is CPC, the Coffee Promotion Consortium, an umbrella association for the main companies that produce and market coffee in its many variations– roasted, decaffeinated, instant and in capsules or pods. Together with UCIMAC, the association representing Italian manufacturers of espresso coffee machines and equipment for bars, the CPC will be operating in a special area called “Coffee District” (Pav. 24). The multidisciplinary event will involve top experts from the coffee world, research institutes and international organizations.
The aim is to disseminate and promote the culture of coffee, looking in-depth at subjects of the utmost importance, such as national and international market trends and the future scenario, with a particular focus on coffee capsules and pods, and to present the data resulting from a survey conducted by Astra about the relationship between coffee and well-being; the coffee industry’s commitment to producing a drink that is increasingly sustainable; training and the culture of quality coffee.
The food core of Host becomes culture and spectacle
The Network Del Gusto is being organized by APCI – the professional Association of Italian Chefs, in collaboration with Italian Gourmet and apropositodime.com (Pav. 2, Food Service Equipment):5 days of live lectures animated by top professionals in the sector, proposing an excellent level of catering suited to different formats: from breakfast to catering and banqueting, restaurants and hotels, right up to the dessert.The national team of APCI CHEF ITALIA will be proposing regional cuisine applied to the themes of the individual days, according to the laws of sustainability, in line with the aims of #Expo2015. All of this will be seasoned with numerous case histories which, using the Toc Talks formula with regard to expertise in providing good hospitality, will result in a clever mix of culture, trends, lifestyles and professional skills. The moderator will be an important food blogger.
The role of consultancy in the design, management and organization of services for the professional hotel and catering sector is vital for ensuring successful service. B2B Workshops and Seminars will be held on the theme“The best of consultancy in hospitality ”, promoted by FCSI – Foodservice Consultants Society International (Pav. 2, Food Service Equipment). FCSI experts will be illustrating the details, citing case histories and giving practical examples. For those who wish to learn more and receive customized answers, Expert Consultant FCSI Members will be on hand to organize short, goal-oriented “Ask the expert” consultancy workshops.
In the events promoted by Assofrigoristi (Pav. 2, Food Service Equipment) a relentless series of debates and round tables, the BarCamp formula has been chosen to focus on themes and tools for finding effective ways of ensuring food quality and quality refrigeration; fridge maintenance in the industry’s calculation of LCA, the technical options of fridge installation, the relationship between energy management and maintenance, in-store positioning and smart system management. There will also be presentations about experiences in integrated HVAC&R systems engineering.
On another subject, itwill be the task of the Federation of Italian Chefs (Pad. 18) to find the most talented of all Italy’s chefs and choose the “Chef of the Year”, an award presented by the federation for the last 10 years, organized jointly with the Chefs’Union of the Lombardy Region, hunting out Italy’s most creative chefs and bringing them to the fore.
Recommendations from the counter
The Arena Dolce (or ‘sweet arena’) promoted by FIPE – the Italian Retail Business Federation (Pav. 18, Gelato-Pastry), is the place where laboratories and workshop areas will provide the format for appraising craft-made desserts, with service and inviting ambiences that will fit into the most widespread types of venues, even for light lunches.With a pace worthy of television, Master Gelato chefs will be taking part in a dense program to demonstrate the myriad ways in which chocolate can be used. They will also be trying to break the record of the Guinness Book of Records for producing the greatest number of tubs of ice cream with different chocolate-based flavors.
Champion pastry chefs, on the other hand, will be tackling the Milanese cake par excellence, the Panettone, partly as a tribute to Expo, reflecting the Universal Exposition’s aims to spread information about typical, unique types of local food on an international scale.
A special area will be allocated to chocolate in its multifarious forms, from chocolate pralines to chocolate sculpture, with the help of famous master chocolate-makers.
The drivers that will bring trade professionals into this specialized arena with a strong cultural and professional impact will be the choice of ingredients and where they come from, expertise in using traditional recipes and making them more ‘up to date’, a capacity to meet and satisfy contemporary trends, new formats, food design and, last but not least, the art of service.
OK, but what will bars be like in the future? The idea of the Futurbar, promoted by the FIA Consortium and Comufficio (Pav. 10 – Furnishings) and designed by Architect Simone Micheli, was conceived to answer this very question. Technology will play a central role in venues in the future. Interactive and technological at the same time, the venue of the future will be able to merge real and virtual space thanks to non-invasive and invasive technology, conjuring up sensations and contexts that are constantly changing.
Even the concept of architecture and interior design will change, because the focus will no longer be on volumes, physical spaces and lighting, but on digital tools. Virtual content will color the space in a different way, creating an unusual atmosphere in which the stimuli of sounds, lights and smells merge.
With “Enjoy the Table” promoted by ALTOGA – the Association of Lombardy coffee roasters, coffee importers and wholesale food retailers and ART – the Association of Arts of the Table and Gifts (Pav. 22) visitors will be able to appreciate smells, tastes, color and shape.
A format of events organized into daily themes focusing on festivals, tradition, wellness and street food, which all share the same values: sociability, culture, sustainability and innovation. An interesting journey of investigation where the spotlights will be focusing on the close alliance between food, the tools used to transform it and the art of setting the table, a journey crowned with the unmistakable aroma of coffee.
The smell of coffee…and a lot more besides
“Barista Bonanza” is supported by SCAE, the Italian Chapter of the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe. Thanks to this event, the excellence of coffee is even more at the core of Host2015. A series of didactic demonstrations and presentations with the aim of emphasizing the excellence of coffee: Barista Bonanza will have two stations at the exhibition.
At the “Coffee Stage”, experts will be giving 45-minute seminars on the different types of coffee and on related economic and commercial topics. At the second station, world-class baristas will be preparing special coffees from all over the world. A rare opportunity to discover the variety of techniques used by top-class baristas, with coffee produced by local coffee roasters and using espresso coffee machines or filter coffee prepared in various ways.
“We are striving to achieve excellence in the sphere of coffee through innovation, research, education and communication,”confirmedthe Executive Director of SCAE, David Veal. “Currently we have 3,000 members in 90 countries and we have active local branches in more than 30 countries.
We have created this partnership with the organizers of HOSTMilano in order to carry on our mission, which is to offer a direct experience of the excellence of coffee to the greatest number of people possible, through demonstrations and, of course, tastings, with the help of some of the best baristas in the world.”
Workshops and seminars promoted by AIFBM
AIFBM – the Italian Food & Beverage Manager Association has also chosen Host2015 to present a high-class event with the collaboration of the Locali Top magazine. A comfortable designer lounge (Pav. 24) will welcome not only F&B Managers from Italy and abroad who are attending the fair but it will also be the setting for a series of meetings, tutorials and events which are part of a well-planned schedule. The aim is to highlight the growing importance of this figure, not only in the hotel context, but in all the reception facilities where catering plays a crucial role and, as such, deserves to be managed with a structured, managerial approach.
An educational area focusing on the sphere of beverages and food, an important place where people can meeting and compare notes, conceived with the aim of reinterpreting mixability and launching ‘new rites’for mixing drinks which share a sole common denominator: hybridization.
With Mixer Educational – A new way of interpreting mixability, Pav. 22), Mixer and Planet One will be putting trade professionals in touch with important names from the spheres of production and distribution, thus further enhancing the packed Host program of events and encouraging the exchange of new ideas and input, in the hope of improving professional activities and business.
Pizza- and pasta-making under the spotlight
For the first time at a fair event, at Host2015, the Universitàdella Pizza will be presenting an overview of the most popular gourmet Italian pizzas.
The idea of gourmet pizza was conceived at the Pizza University as the result of research into flour, yeast and baking techniques. Only students who attend the three levels of training at the University of Pizza learn to make state-of-the-art gourmet pizza that fully complies with the Manifesto of Modern-Day Italian Pizza, drawn up by Italy’s best-known food journalists.
“Le Pillole di Primo Piatto”(Primo Piatto’s Brief Courses) is the name of the initiative that APPAFRE, the association of fresh pasta makers, and the “Primo Piatto” pasta-making school will present during Host 2015 (Pav. 7). The initiative will include a series of short courses on various themes having to do with making pasta and catering based on pasta. These courses are intended for industry professionals and people who aim to become professionals. There will be tastings of the products of APPAFRE members in-between the various courses.
European Pizza Championship
Host2015 is hosting the 2015 European Pizza Championship promoted by Pizza e Pasta Italiana, which will be attended by 80 competitors over the two days of the competition. Imagination is the name of the game: the participants will each present their own pizzeria’s special pizza recipe, using wildly extravagant ingredients and imaginative juxtapositions. And that’s not all: pizza seminars, show-cooking by master pizza bakers, pizza by the meter and the new vegan pizza trends, vegetarian pizza, pizza “free from” all kinds of ingredients for the pizzerias of the new millennium, tackling themes such as high-level training and pizza counseling, and alternatives to classic pizza recipes such as the Margherita, without any meat or animal derivatives, to more elaborate variations.
Conferences
“A project for sustainability and branded products” is the weighty title of the conference being organized by FairSuperBrands on23rd-24th October at the Stella Polare ConferenceCenter.Two days discussing the impact of branded products from the mass retail chain on social and environmental sustainability in Europe, bringing together trade professionals, consumers and current food practices. The aim is for social and environmental aspects to be taken into consideration in each part of the agricultural and food supply chain, from production to consumption. It also aims to create awareness about how our buying habits, food habits and the way we obtain food can all have effects on the environment and society.
#TourismReload presented by Teamwork with the help of Hospitality Project,is a conference which proposes the aims of the recent Culture and Tourism Act. The purpose of the recent new law is to encourage and boost the hospitality industry, starting by renovating the quality of the facilities. It is a great opportunity. But how to take advantage of it? Where to find the financial resources? How to use them effectively, maximizing your investments? These and other questions will take answered in #TourismReload, an innovative workshop format providing expertise and ideas from experienced professionals, with examples based on real hotel cases, regarding factors of crisis and success, aesthetic and functional design, and proper planning of your budget.
Events organized by companies
At Host 2015, Carpigiani Gelato University, promoted by Carpigiani, will arrange in-depth training sessions taught by its own prestigious teaching staff. Among the themes being tackled, much space will be devoted to the role of gelato in catering, the new fascinating creations made with soft gelato, and the key managerial aspects of a successful ice
cream venue.
Milano Latte Art Challenge, the new barista competition designed by Trismoka, the coffee company,is the definitive challenge for exponents of Latte Art: 12 baristas will compete in 9 disciplines, starting from traditional and easy patterns to the more challenging techniques and figures. The 8 top baristas will be admitted to the final stage of the contest, where they will compete again, but this time only one will become the overall champion, decided by a panel of three highly-qualified judges. To make the contest even more challenging, strict rules will oblige the competitors to reproduce the figures proposed by the organization to the best of their ability.
For up-to-date information about the events in 2015: http://host.fieramilano.it/en/events.
