The Week of Italian Cuisine in the World returns in 2025, marking the tenth edition of one of the most extensive international programs dedicated to promoting Italy’s food and wine sector. Launched in 2016 as a continuation of the themes introduced at Expo Milano 2015, it has helped define a clear narrative around the Italian agri-food supply chain abroad, emphasizing quality, sustainability, biodiversity and culinary identity. Over the past decade, it has generated more than ten thousand events in over one hundred countries, involving institutions, businesses and local communities.
The theme chosen for 2025 — “Italian cuisine between culture, health and innovation” — reinforces the idea of gastronomy as a space where tradition and research converge. It highlights the resilience of Italy’s culinary model, which continues to evolve without losing its core principles.
In New York, this perspective intersects with a long-standing familiarity with Italian food. The city hosts one of the largest communities of Italian chefs, bakers and restaurateurs outside Italy, many of whom have become key reference points for residents and visitors. Their work shapes a significant portion of the global imagination surrounding Italian cuisine, at times more influential than official promotional campaigns.
Here, the Week of Italian Cuisine is more than a themed initiative. It serves as an opportunity to highlight the professional ecosystem that continuously sustains the reputation of Italian food — from neighborhood trattorias to innovative restaurants. Italy’s bid for UNESCO intangible cultural heritage status, reiterated in this edition, finds in New York a natural testing ground where tradition and experimentation coexist.
A video produced for the 2025 edition features about thirty chefs, bakers and restaurateurs, offering glimpses into their daily work in New York kitchens. It underscores the idea that “food is not only nourishment but also culture and tradition,” presenting just a portion of those who make Italian cuisine recognizable in the city and contribute to its global reach.
The work of these businesses often intersects with efforts to protect the authenticity of ingredients and recipes — a recurring theme in the Week’s initiatives. This is especially relevant in the United States, where Italian sounding remains widespread and where Italian producers and restaurateurs collaborate with institutions and associations to promote certified products and protected denominations.
The 2025 edition also highlights Italian cuisine as a model of healthy and sustainable eating. Interest in Mediterranean diets has grown steadily in the United States, and Italian communities have played a key role in spreading this approach.
Alongside the cultural dimension, the Week emphasizes the importance of innovation across the entire supply chain: research on raw materials, new transformation techniques, updated distribution models and strategies to reduce waste. These aspects are central to the promotional activities coordinated each year by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, carried out together with the partners of the Italian System and adapted by diplomatic missions worldwide.