Ein Prosit, the 25th edition of the open-air festival of contemporary gastronomy in Udine

It all started 25 years ago. An event where you could meet good food and excellent wines. Local products and specialities from around the world, brought together in what one would not wrongly call a 'splendid setting'. In the mountains of the Tarvisio area, in the delightful village of Malborghetto. But even then you could sense that there was something different. More than a fair, a carefree gathering of enthusiasts and friends. There were already a few cooks, but the Ein Prosit of the early days (nomen omen) was certainly not focused on haute cuisine.

Since then, the vision (and stubbornness) of Claudio Tognoni and the entry into the game as consultants of Paolo Vizzari and Manuela Fissore, year after year has made this event the cult gastronomic event of the year. Journalists and foodies from all over the world, the best chefs from the five continents, the frontier of fine dining and a few glimpses of the future unfold for five days in Udine and its surroundings. Friuli caput mundi (gastronomic). Ein Prosit is different from all other food-related events. There are workshops and masterclasses here too, but no stage, no congress. The only stage is the one on which friendly musicians, with the permanent presence of the great percussionist Trilok Gurtu, take the stage from year to year. The focus is on dinners, where in a diabolical tetris the organisers manage to condense the best of international haute cuisine into a playful and always relaxed spirit.

For this 25th anniversary, the game has gone even bigger: 140 appointments over five days and more than ten dinners to choose from each evening, where the big names overlap in a whirlwind that will astound even the most avid gourmet. Bottura, Crippa, Romito, Uliassi, Niederkofler, Alajmo and many other Italians in the kitchen with Mauro Colagreco, Virgilio Martinez, Quique DaCosta, Yoshihiro Narisawa, Ana Ros and Bruno Verjus, to name but a few. After the controversy of recent months over the future of fine dining - does it still make sense? How will it evolve? - Udine from 16 to 20 October will be transformed into an open-air festival of contemporary gastronomy.

Without ever taking itself too seriously, just look at the 'titles' of the dinners. "Other Worlds" will bring together two singular "altitudes": Pía Salazar and Alejandro Chamorro, creators of a cuisine of territory at the Nuema restaurant in the 2,850 metres of Quito, with Riccardo Camanini of Lido 84 in Gardone Riviera, the highest-ranking Italian chef in the 50 Best Restaurants list. "Bosphorus Thrilling Blues" will stage the daring cuisines of Turkish Maksut Askar and Alessandro Dal Degan. "Coming from the South, South" will feature Rodolfo Guzmán in the kitchen, extolling the ingredients of the Chilean sea, and Kobus Wan Der Merwe, committed to showcasing the indigenous raw materials of the South African coast. "Today's Wild, Tomorrow's Civil" showcases the Malaysian jungle in the dishes of Darren Teoh and the experiments of Riccardo Canella, with his long experience at Noma's Lab. "India, the real one" will be presented by Prateek Sadhu, who has returned to the Himalayan forests of his origins, where he has immersed his new restaurant, and Himanshu Saini, who practices it with philological creativity (pardon the oxymoron) in Dubai. Grand finale at the 'Feast of united embers, vol. 3', celebrating one of the possible futures of haute cuisine, which lives on the sparks of live fire.