Cap Karoso’s Sumba Food Festival is a celebration of Sumbanese culture and gastronomy

When the property opened to the public three years ago, this was only the beginning. In 2025, its founders launched the inaugural Sumba Food Festival, an annual celebration of Sumbanese culture through gastronomy, bringing together some of Asia-Pacific’s most influential chefs, inviting them to discover Sumba through its ingredients, traditions, and cuisine.

This tradition continues for the second time this year; chefs travelled from across the region, including Seoul’s Joseph Lidgerwood, Bangkok’s Dan Bark, Bali’s Eelke Plasmeijer, and Dubai’s Brando Moros, not simply to cook spectacular dinners, but to immerse themselves in Sumbanese culture. There are few surer ways to the heart than the stomach, and the same can be said for falling in love with a culture.

Among Sumba’s most celebrated produce is chocolate and cashews. The island’s unique climate and fertile terrior produce high-quality cacao and large, sweet cashew nuts. At Talasi Cashew farm, we saw how cashews were cultivated and processed, each nut painstakingly hand-processed to remove its skin. The farm works closely with local farmers, equipping them with the skills to cultivate the nuts, one of Sumba’s main exports.

Chocolate carries an equally meaningful story. Donders chocolate line is produce in partnership with its social foundation with the aim of empowering vulnerable communities, especially women and children, while producing high-quality chocolate.

Neighbouring Cap Karoso are multiple traditional villages, the closest of which is Waikaroko. Sumbanese houses are recognisable for their peaked roofs, known as uma mbatangu, a distinctive architectural feature that has found its way into contemporary buildings. The food festival’s welcome ceremony took place in this village, where a traditional feast offered a gateway to the island’s Marapu culture.

See also: How Marriott International’s Luxury Dining Series celebrated Bali at Mandapa, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve

At the heart of the resort is its own organic farm, which supplies much of the produce served throughout the resort. There are farm fresh eggs from a pen of 200 free-range chickens—a brown wooden flip counter keeps track of the farm’s egg production; during our visit it read an impressive 1,458 eggs—mushrooms, eggplants, four-angled beans, and more.

These ingredients are also the foundation for the festival’s four-hands dinners, with visiting chefs interpreting them through their own lens. The farm itself is a dining destination, with an open-air kitchen set up in its centre, allowing guests to dine among the crops that form the food on their plates.

At Julang, Cap Karoso’s chef’s table, Dan Bark and Brando Moros collaborated on a four-hands dinner that brought together refined technique and Sumbanese ingredients. The dining table extends directly from the kitchen countertop, creating a connection between diners and the cooking. Scallops were paired with fragrant kemangi, while duck met sweet pineapple, dishes developed following the chefs’ visit to the farm.

Beyond the resort, the island unfolds into great stretches of wild, untouched landscape. A morning run led us to Weekuri lake, a natural blue lagoon of shimmering clear water, separated from the ocean by a natural rock barrier. While Sumba Food Festival brings chefs across the world to the island, Sumba takes center stage. 

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