Prime your palate. This year's World Gourmet Festival is bigger than ever

Bangkok’s annual World Gourmet Festival is back for another week of workshops, wine-tasting, market tours, dinners, afternoon teas and brunch.

On from October 5-11 at the Four Seasons Hotel, this year’s festival will feature 10 award-winning Master Chefs who will each host two evenings in one of the hotel’s restaurants and hold one cooking demonstration. Sure beats learning how to cook mac and cheese in home economics class. (Sorry, bad flashback to junior high.)

Local foodies are perhaps most excited about Thai food expert David Thompson’s inclusion. Thompson is the owner of London’s Nahm, the first Thai restaurant ever to be awarded a Michelin star. His book “Thai Food” has won piles of culinary book awards worldwide. His follow up, “Thai Street Food”, will be published soon. (We’ve lined up a spot in Monday’s class with Thompson, and will share our experiences next week.)

But of course this is the “world” gourmet festival and the event takes its global moniker seriously. Chefs from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America will all be here too.

These include Kazumi Sawada, executive chef of Michelin-starred Tokyo restaurant Banrekiryukodo; American David Kinch of double Michelin-starred Manresa in California; Fulvio Siccardi of Italy’s Conti Roero restaurant in Monticello d'Alba; and Chicago's Graham Elliot Bowles of Grahm Elliot resturant.

For the full World Gourmet Festival schedule and biographies of all the visiting chefs, hit the Four Seasons Bangkok’s website.