Program Overview

It is this enduring interplay of place, people, and palate that brings us together in 2026. The 28th Annual Worlds of Flavor® International Conference & Festival will bring a distinguished delegation of chefs and food experts from across these five countries—as well as from across the United States—to The Culinary Institute of America’s Copia campus in Napa Valley, California. Together, we will explore how East and Southeast Asian food cultures are reshaping American menus through brilliant techniques, bold creativity, and an unwavering commitment to balance, seasonality, and the art and craft of deliciousness.

To appreciate the force of that influence, we begin with the traditions themselves. Rooted in centuries of culinary knowledge, these cuisines reveal extraordinary diversity. We find refined, elegant traditions such as Japanese kaiseki and Korean royal cuisine alongside more-constrained, but-still-dazzling temple cooking shaped by Buddhist vegetarian practices; vibrant street foods and night markets; family-run neighborhood restaurants; and some of the world’s most dynamic contemporary dining scenes. Across the region, everyday meals and celebratory cooking share a common DNA defined by a pursuit of excellence and a rich cultural aesthetic—through the medium of complex broths, regional rice and noodle kitchens, layering of aromatics, seafood mastery, plant-forward strategies that elevate tofu and peanuts, and often intriguing contrasts of flavor, texture, and temperature.

That diversity comes into especially vivid focus in the region’s great urban crossroads. Across these five countries, certain cities have emerged as influential centers of culinary expression—places where decades and centuries of tradition, disruptive creativity, and urban energy converge. Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto offer complementary visions of Japanese cuisine, from cutting-edge modern dining to codified seasonal rituals refined over hundreds of years. Seoul stands at the forefront of Korea’s dynamic food culture, where royal cuisine, home cooking, street food, temple traditions, and Michelin-starred tasting menus coexist and cross-pollinate. In Southeast Asia, Bangkok, Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh City explode with street life, regional diversity, and accelerating dialogues between heritage and world-class reinvention. Singapore occupies a distinctive place among these capitals: a true crossroads cuisine shaped by Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Peranakan traditions, refined through generations of hawker culture, global trade, and contemporary ambitions—now newly competitive on the global gastronomic stage. While these cities are not the sole arbiters of their nations’ food cultures, they serve as powerful lenses—revealing how local identity, migration, and modern life shape some of the world’s most compelling food experiences.

At Worlds of Flavor 2026, we translate these living traditions into practical insights and inspiration. Chefs and experts will unpack the flavor elements and architectures that define East and Southeast Asia: koji, soy-based ferments, dried fish, and fish sauce; rice and noodles in their many cultural expressions; herbs, chilies, curry pastes, and spice mixtures; sea vegetables and heirloom produce; and the sauces that anchor each cuisine, from Korean gochujang to Thai nam prik and Vietnamese nước chấm. We will examine how the application of these flavor systems translates across formats—from tasting menus to fast casual concepts, and from neighborhood restaurants to large-scale foodservice.

As with every Worlds of Flavor, this conference will bridge heritage and innovation. Guardians of tradition will share techniques passed down through generations, while forward-looking chefs will demonstrate how these foundations can inspire new forms of dining—from modern Singaporean chefs’ tables and Seoul tasting menus to reimagined street foods designed for speed, portability, and value. Attending American chefs and restaurateurs will see and taste how these flavors can be imaginatively adapted for today’s diners.

Because cuisine is never only about taste, we’ll also examine the total experience that carries flavor into memory. Across East and Southeast Asia, dining is inseparable from performance, material culture, and environment. From handmade ceramics and charcoal-fired kitchens to minimalist interiors and night-market energy, experience design amplifies flavor and memory—lessons with relevance across all segments of foodservice.

This is an immersion in culture, flavor discovery and ideas not to be missed.  Asian cuisines are no longer just emerging influences on the American table. Today, this world heritage of food and culture has joined center stage in our national food conversations—and our collective appetites. Join us as we explore how traditional and modern creative impulses in the kitchens of Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore are sparking the next era of American menu innovation.