A conversation with Angela Donato, CEO of Sognare Insieme Viaggi and founder of the Calabria Food Fest
The Calabria Food Fest, launched in 2025, marked a turning point for Calabrian tourism and its international reach. By proposing an innovative format that blends exclusivity with immersive experience, the initiative, organized by Sognare Insieme Viaggi, has restored food to the noble role it has always held: a generator of culture, conviviality, and collective memory. And a powerful driver of tourism interest. Its international success in the press and on social media has only confirmed what years of research have shown: those who differentiate, win.
Reinforcing this momentum, the “revolutionary” approach to the 2026 edition arrives with a bold new tagline: “Where Italy Begins.”
We spoke with Angela Donato, founder and managing director of Sognare Insieme Viaggi.
Let’s start with the present. The tagline for the 2026 edition feels almost like a provocation…
Indeed, more than a claim or tagline, which is what the marketing textbooks would call it, for us, “Where Italy Begins” is a motto.
And what does it evoke?
Calabria is where Italy begins, both geographically and culturally. Greek colonists called what is now Calabria “Italia”, a name that eventually extended to the entire peninsula. Beyond that, we want to overturn a well-worn narrative, one even debated by serious scholars, that frames our region as an “extremity,” a place of endings with a negative connotation. We are in the tourism business, and we have a duty to bring out the very best our land has to offer. This is not where things end. This is where they begin. New stories are written here, lived moments that become memories, settling in the hearts of people as a longing to return, as nostalgia. A contemporary Odyssey, and one with a happy ending.
Speaking of lived experience — how much of yourself is in this project?
Everything. All of it. I’ve worked in tourism for 25 years. I returned to Calabria after studying at the University of Florence, and after working in England, the United States, and Egypt as a resident manager for an international hotel management company. Wherever I went, Calabria stayed with me, sometimes as a longing to return, sometimes as a point of comparison, sometimes simply as nostalgia for flavors, customs, and small everyday gestures. I’m returning to invest, bringing the best of what I’ve acquired to serve my land, building a young, international team, majority-female.
A Calabrian “fest” with many facets. So what exactly is the Calabria Food Fest?
An experience, but one far removed from the rhetoric of conventional tourism promotion. The Calabria Food Fest is, above all, a journey: a tour through the most authentic Calabria. An itinerary built around various kinds of movement, of the body and the soul. The making of pasta, bread, and ceramics in direct contact with the custodians of millennia-old knowledge, like our legendary grandmothers. Listening to Mediterranean music with ancestral roots that reconnect us to our ancient “motherland,” Greece, performed by young musicians with international credentials to match. The tasting of unexpected, genuine flavors passed down through generations, alongside the boldly innovative cuisine recognized by the world’s most prestigious food guides, from chefs who have chosen to invest in this territory. The living well in extraordinary places: hidden beaches, sea-view vineyards, and cultural sites of unparalleled value. It is an experience of regeneration and the construction of an intimate, deeply felt memory, one that blossoms from the ease of a refined conviviality, tailored for small groups, where exclusivity is the lens through which guests gain a profound understanding of the cultural and natural landscape, without compromising the territory’s authenticity, and without enduring the overtourism that plagues so many other destinations.
What kind of regeneration?
Both material and immaterial for the host communities, who are involved in passing down an immense, millennia-deep heritage in a contemporary key; for the guests, who experience the territory by discovering its deep roots; and for the places themselves. Historic sites like the Castle of Squillace and other extraordinary examples of fortified heritage are reinterpreted and transformed: from bastions of defense, they become the strongholds of a new hospitality.
How?
By hosting Mediterranean Calabrian music, workshops with the celebrated ceramicists of Squillace, cooking classes with acclaimed chefs, open dialogues with leading voices in Calabrian cultural, political, and entrepreneurial life, and beyond. Oil, bread, and wine tastings. And as the crown jewel of a Mediterranean and cosmopolitan experience: a gala dinner with chefs of excellence, in full Italian and Calabrian style, in a timeless atmosphere. Calabria is a stage set gifted to us by Mother Nature, the Mitèra Ghe of our Greek forebears, one that has inspired poets, travelers, and intellectuals across every generation. Through the CFF, Calabria becomes the protagonist of a story that is both memorable and utterly spontaneous.
And the sea?
The heart of the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean of the heart, that is Calabria’s CFF. Its history begins with the sea, and its cuisine evolved through that relationship: from the catch as a legacy of both subsistence and maritime trade, to the exquisite inland recipes born when coastal populations retreated from invasions into one of Europe’s most biodiverse hinterlands. In the same way, the music, arts, and rituals we discover with our guests owe their very essence to the sea.
Describe the CFF in one word.
A dream, the dream of writing a new cardinal point on the map of travelers’ desires: Calabria.
And has it come true?
Yes, with concreteness and passion. In 2025, we launched the Calabria Food Fest within the framework of a major Italian Ministry of Tourism program, the Montagna Italia grant, of which we became beneficiaries through the Le Montagne del Sole project, developed together with lead partner GAL Serre Calabresi and partners SharryLand, AIS Calabria, Trekking Stilaro Experience, Riviera e Borghi degli Angeli. In addition to Ministry support, we received backing from ITALEA and various local institutions: the Calabria Region, through the Tourism and Agriculture departments, ARSAC, Calabria Film Commission, and the Municipality of Squillace, while maintaining an ongoing synergy with local businesses and communities. These are essential elements in building an experience that is simultaneously unique and collective, exclusive and authentic. With this spirit, in 2026, we take flight from the very origins, from where Italy begins.
Why attend the Calabria Food Fest?
For the happiness it gives you. A happiness outside of time, far from the rush, the anxieties, and the deadlines of everyday life. At the Calabria Food Fest, the Dolce Vita steps out of photographs and postcards and becomes a gathering, a joy, a celebration.
→ JOIN THE 2027 EARLY ACCESS LIST
Calabria Food Fest. Where Italy begins.
