Karachi Eat 2025 food festival brings international cuisine to Pakistan

The air at Beach View Park in Karachi was filled with the enticing aroma of Sicilian slow-cooked beef, Arabic Paratha, beefy Chapli Kebabs from Peshawar and mouthwatering Chicken Tikka. 

Welcome to Karachi Eat 2025, Pakistan’s biggest annual food festival. The three-day festival has been taking place in the ‘City of Lights’ every year in January since 2014. This year’s festival, set to conclude today, Sunday, also features hundreds of eateries and offers a variety of cuisines to visitors.

According to Ticket Wala, a platform that sells tickets for entertainment events, chefs from Indonesia, Singapore, Turkiye, Romania, Malaysia, France and other countries visited Karachi for the festival. 

Sarah Aziz, a food stall owner passionately selling Sicilian cuisine, told Arab News that she wanted to bring international cuisine to Pakistanis who could not travel to countries around the world. 

“We want to bring the flavors out there for everyone who can’t go to Sicily, Portugal, or Malta,” she said. “We want to bring the food here, so they can also cherish and enjoy it.”

Aziz said she wanted to “convert” her cuisine, which was for a niche market, so that many people in Pakistan can enjoy and develop a taste for it. “So, the menu is basically based on slow-cooked beef with lamb fat,” she said. “We are doing handmade pesto with garlic paste.”

For others like Muhammad Ismail, 28, the festival provided an opportunity for him to indulge in his love for Arabic cuisine. 

“I just had Arabic Paratha here,” Ismail, a banker by profession, told Arab News. “I have it there [Saudi Arabia] too but this one tastes exactly like the authentic one you get in Saudi Arabia, and it’s absolutely amazing,” he said.  

Shaikh Ameen, the owner of Arabi’s, a restaurant in Karachi that offers Arabic cuisine, said there was a growing appreciation for Middle Eastern cuisine in Pakistan.  

“We offer authentic shawarma, mutabbaq and kunafa, so we’re serving these authentic dishes here,” Ameen said. 

“There are quite a few people from the Middle East, especially families, who are familiar with this food, and they really enjoy it. Moreover, people’s tastes have evolved, and they really like these flavors now.” 

Kashaf Noman, a textile designer in her 20s, expressed her enthusiasm for the festival.  

“I am loving it, it’s very really organized and I have many more options here than at other festivals, so it’s really nice, I’m having fun,” she said. 

Noman said she had relished fish gyozas, waffles and a Mexican drink.