Just days into the 2015-2016 tourism season, CuisinArt Golf Resort and Spa had the distinct pleasure of hosting its 2nd Annual Epicurea – a Metropolitan Golf Association (MGA) event which attracted a large number of business executives to Anguilla from throughout the United States. The event, which began with a dinner on Thursday, November 5, continued until Monday, November 9, with other fine dining experiences, tours and playing of golf.
The occasion not only brought a considerable amount of publicity to the resort, but to Anguilla as well – many of the visitors having been to the island for the first time. CuisinArt partnered with The Met Golfer, the official publication of the MGA and Matchesi Aninori Wineries of Italy, to create the unique culinary getaway for the visitors. The featured visiting Chefs were Master Chef Christophe Muller and Philippe Lusseau along with CuisinArt’s own Executive Chef and team. The dinner was in honour of renowned “Chef of the Century”, Paul Bocuse.
Mr. Stephane Zaharia, Vice President and General Manager of CuisinArt Resort, welcomed the guests. “For us, it is a great pleasure to have all of you,” he told them. “We have fabulous chefs who will be cooking for you for the rest of the weekend, and we are looking forward to showing you what Anguilla’s hospitality is all about. This is a very important year for us – getting into 2016. In addition to CuisinArt Resort and Spa, we are building an 80-room hotel called the Reef by CuisinArt and when we finished that we are also going to start building and actually finishing a real estate project. We would like to see you here next year. Right now, we have a hundred participants and we hope that in November 2016 we will have 200 participants. I am sure you are going to come back and will also tell friends to come to Anguilla.”
Mr. Rick Summers, CEO of the long-established Met Golfer Magazine, also joined in the welcome ceremony. He was grateful to CuisinArt Resort, Mr. Zaharia and members of staff for hosting the Epicurea.
Speaking earlier to The Anguillian, Mr. Zaharia said: “Last year the event was every success, and this year we were able to quadruple the attendees increasing it to a hundred participants. The guests are from all over the United States – Arizona to Ohio, Florida and New York – and all of them are members of very prestigious golf clubs. What we at the resort are basically doing is merging culinary experiences with golf experiences. By doing so we are having a very high network of clientele that has a very good understanding of cuisines and good living.
“This event is also sponsored by two power houses: the Antinori Wineries of Italy and the Met Golfer Magazine from the Tri-State area in the United States. We brought in five celebrity chefs –one of them a three-star chef – who works alongside the very celebrity chef – Paul Bocuse. We also brought in a few other celebrity chefs working in very prestigious golf clubs, and they brought their own teams to Anguilla. Ninety percent of them had not heard about Anguilla before so, for them, this is their first initiation to Anguillian hospitality and kindness. This is something that we are going to do year after year because we find it to be very rewarding, and spreading information of what Anguilla is all about – good food, great resorts, great beaches and a great golf course.
Mr. Zaharia went on: “This is a five-night programme. Every night we are going to be featuring a different chef who will talk about his cuisine. We have one night when all the chefs will be presenting their food at a big beach barbecue with various booths, and all the guests will be able to experience the typical cuisine of each chef. We are going to make the epicurea a world-renowned event. We sold out the event six months in advance so we are completely booked as a result. It puts Anguilla and the resort on the map because all the guests are industry leaders, very successful in their own right. They like this kind of hospitality and will go home and spread the word about how wonderful our island is. We don’t have a lot of money to put in advertisements in magazines and on television, but these leaders of industries are going to be ambassadors for Anguilla and the resort. This is what is called a positive word of mouth.”
Mr. Zaharia added: “The accommodation, food and service are top notched and this is what Anguilla is all about. It is a top-notched destination.”
Anguilla’s Chief Minister and Minister of Tourism, Mr. Victor Banks, and Mr. Cardigan Connor, Parliamentary Secretary, Tourism, were both at the event.
