The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), in cooperation with Wynn Macau, the Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) and the Macao Institute for Tourism Studies (IFTM), launched a series of Macanese Cuisine Culinary Heritage Master Classes, which will run until April next year.

Following last year’s cooperation to present master classes with renown Chinese cuisine chefs, this year, with the theme of Macanese cuisine, the series has invited local chefs to present seven Macanese cooking demonstrations to catering staff and students in the city. The master classes aim to deepen the understanding of its participants on the cultural heritage of Macanese cuisine and to stimulate creativity in the industry by encouraging the participants to inherit the city’s Macanese culinary culture through both observing and exchanging cooking skills with the experts and each other.

The first session of the series was held at the end of last month. It was led by the team of Henri’s Galley, who gave a demonstration of the preparation of typical Macanese African chicken and minchi dishes. Chefs from IFTM, the Macau Culinary Association, La Famiglia and Neta Club Cooking Studio, along with two specialists in Macanese cuisine are invited to conduct the next six sessions.

In 2012, Macanese gastronomy was included on Macao’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List. In November 2020, MGTO partnered with IFTM, Cultural Affairs Bureau and IIM to launch the Macanese Cuisine Database webpage (www.gastronomy.gov.mo/#macanese-cuisine-database) and a themed area in the IFTM library was also launched which covered Macanese gastronomy. The area provides a series of recipes, manuscripts, books and publications about Macanese cuisine, which all help to preserve this culinary heritage that has evolved over at least the past four centuries. Plus, just last year, Macanese gastronomy was added to the list of items that represent the National Intangible Cultural Heritage of China.