Saborea Tasting Lanzarote, the biggest food and wine festival in the Canary Islands

If you are in Lanzarote on the 25th and 26th November, you’ll have the perfect opportunity to get to know the products of the sea and the volcanic earth that are the essence of the island.

Inventive cuisine is the star of the biggest food and wine event in the Canary Islands. Follow these steps through the Festival Saborea Lanzarote and you’ll forever be part of this unique gastronomic culture in the world.

Food and wine destination

You should know that, in addition to all the other wonders of the island, this is also a first-class food and wine destination, selected by gourmets from all over the world. This is a place where the landscape is inseparable from the agricultural, livestock and fishing activities, creating a mineral, volcanic and biodiverse gastronomic culture. It is no secret that Lanzarote is proud of these values which are inseparable from its past, present and future as a mid-Atlantic region.

The must-haves

Saborea Lanzarote is a festival of festivals where you can choose from a wide range of activities to suit all tastes and profiles. If you want to discover the gems of Canary Island gastronomy, your must-visit corners are La Casa del Producto Canario, the Saboreando Canarias space and the Aula Saborea Lanzarote classroom. If you are interested in techniques, products or new textures, come to one of the lectures or workshops given by true artists of the kitchen in the Aula del Gusta or the Aula Chinijo, where you can combine master classes with delicious tastings. These are our top seven suggestions:

1. Enjoy this expression of identity and rootedness

The Saborea Lanzarote manifesto promotes the defence of the territory’s biodiversity, a distinguishing feature of  the island since aboriginal times. The environmental philosophy of the people of Lanzarote is also demonstrated in agricultural, livestock and fishing production. The products of the land and the sea are elements of genuine cultural heritage, employing heroic forms of cultivation and traditional farming methods. This festival is, above all, a tribute to the local primary sector, a showcase of pride in wine and food culture as an expression of identity and roots. We invite you to discover rich traditional recipes, stimulated by the creativity of a new generation of local chefs.

2. Experience the taste of Lanzarote

If when you travel you are unconsciously looking for a sensory souvenir, the festival’s Saborea Lanzarote space will provide you with an endless range of options. In the Gastro Market you’ll have access to all the exhibitors ‘ products. This event, which is designed to boost and promote exceptional local produce , brings together the most important chefs and producers. Come to the tasting corners, ask questions, learn and exchange impressions with these masters of sustainable wine and food gastronomy. In each edition of the event, a hundred local professionals exhibit their delicacies to the public, such as tuna from La Graciosa caught using traditional methods, goat’s cheese, jams, wines or all kinds of traditional sweets, some of which are still made in traditional mills. The demand for these delicious morsels means that every year more than 100,000 tastings are prepared.

Living on an Atlantic island, we can never forget the importance of ocean products to our table. In the Aula del Mar you will be able to try most of the species of fish found in our environment prepared by the island’s professionals. Learn how to cook each kind of fish to perfection, attend a signature tasting and – why not – take part in the charity auction that takes place during the ronqueo (butchering) of a Canary Island tuna.

If you want to treat yourself to a slap-up feast, take your time and choose your place carefully, sampling the offer of the thirty-four restaurants and nine gastronomic hotels exhibiting this year. Whether you prefer traditional recipes or culinary innovation, Lanzarote’s restaurants always exceed expectations. You will also find six vegan gastronomy points, four artisan cheese dairies, ten wineries and more than thirty points of sale of products, from Janubio salt to artisan beer, local seafood and jams.

3. Make a date with the cooking elite

Every year, some of the world’s best chefs showcase their talent in the festival’s Área del Gusto tasting area, sharing their innovative techniques with industry professionals, who usually fill the seats for their presentations. The good news is that many of them offer tastings in their sessions that elevate the creative energy of the festival. If you are a gourmet, you will be pleased to know that this year we are expecting international award-winning chefs such as Jordi Cruz (Abac restaurant), Mario Sandoval (Coque), Hilario Arbelaitz (Zuberoa), Begoña Rodrigo (La Salita), the Padrón brothers (El Rincón de Juan Carlos), Fran Martínez (Maralba) and Pepa Muñoz (El Qüenco de Pepa). The international sector is represented in this edition by Thrainn Freyr Vigfusson , from Ox (Iceland), the exclusive seventeen-seater restaurant in Reykjavik, and the Portuguese chefs Arnaldo Días (Vila Foz), Rafaela Barbosa (Gruta) and Vasco Coelho (Eskalduna Studio), who arrive with Oporto’s most cutting edge cuisine.

4. Visit the “Chinijo” Space designed for future generations

Saborea Lanzarote is an open and family gathering space, where girls and boys (for us chinijas and chinijos ) find a multitude of corners where they can explore their culinary skills. Don’t give up on your personal immersive experience for fear of boring the smallest members of your family. In Aula Chinijo Chef the little ones learn fun recipes from young professionals, sometimes familiar faces from the small screen. This is the case of Sofía and Víctor, contestants of the sixth edition of Master Chef, who offer a Lanzarote cooking workshop for participants aged between six and twelve. They will come out of the experience experts in Lanzarote pasties, chocolate hazelnut and gofio cookies, and cream puff pastries with local fruit. Another option is the Ludogastroteca, the perfect play space for children can play – and, of course, the service is supervised at all times by specialised staff. So now you know: travelling with the family is no excuse for missing out on Lanzarote’s fiesta of flavour.

5. Enjoy cultural activities in the festival environment

Saborea Lanzarote is so much more than a great gastronomic festival in which the work of the local cuisine and catering sector is on show to the general public. The festival adds value in all its facets, starting with the place where it takes place, the historic artistic centre of the town of Teguise , one of the oldest towns in the Canary Islands. Take the opportunity to visit the Timple Museum, converted into the Casa del Producto Canario (House of Canary Island Products), where you can discover the gastronomic gems of the Canary Islands in the Wine Tunnel, the Cheese Tunnel, the Product Workshops and the Canteen for tastings and samplings.

Don’t miss the storytellers ¿Y yo qué? Cuéntame cómo nace un vino  (for ages four and up) or the talk Brindo por las mujeres , both led by the Lanzarote actress Isabel Cabrera together with the heads of the island’s wineries.

6. Sample the volcanic wine

Let’s face it, one of the biggest attractions of Saborea Lanzarote is its wine-growing dimension. It could be no other way on an island that boasts an unbelievably beautiful terroir, La Geria , its own Designation of Origin, Vinos de Lanzarote , and a native grape variety called malvasía volcánica. If we have aroused your curiosity, you are in luck because the festival has a specific programme of talks, tastings and demonstrations in its Aula del Vino space. Sign up for one of the talks on offer and deepen your knowledge of sparkling wines, recipes or pairings with gofio, chocolates, cheeses and other local gastronomic delicacies.

7. Open the window to other flavours

In each edition of Saborea Lanzarote, we are proud to receive the visit of gastronomic delegations from other latitudes. Bonds are strengthened and cultures embrace each other around the different flavours produced by our neighbours. For this reason, the festival reserves a place of honour for Atlantic cuisine, from the ocean that gives a common identity to the Canary Islands, Madeira, Azores, Mauritania, Cape Verde, Portugal and Galicia. This is the perfect opportunity to travel sensorially to these unique, exotic and flavoursome locations, through the ambassadors who come to the Lanzarote event. The invitation is extended in the Espacio Destinos, to the kitchens of Lisbon, A Coruña and Cambrils, which will be showcasing their proposals this year alongside representatives from Tenerife and Gran Canaria. Furthermore, the eight islands of the Canary archipelago play a leading role in the festival and each edition shows the evolution of their gastronomic essence. Likewise, restaurants from different Spanish regions will be attending the Lanzarote gastronomic event in the Saborea España space.

We have reached the end of our visit, and we’re sure you’ve been left with a fantastic taste in your mouth. Spoiler alert! You’re going to have to come back next year because you’ll never be  able to complete the visit to all the spaces of Saborea Lanzarote. And anyway, once is never enough.