Mexican waves at the Nova Festival of Tastes. The event was visited by a record 13 thousand people

On the weekend of January 17th and 18th, the third year of the largest domestic food festival was held in the O₂ universum multifunctional center in Prague, which was visited by almost 13 thousand people. The Nova Festival of Tastes event is organized by Nova TV in cooperation with Bestsport. The stands of twenty of the best restaurants from all over the country have grown up under one roof. In addition to tasting great food, visitors met stars known from TV screens.

“In recent years, we have been going out to see our viewers more and more often. Whether it is a summer roadshow around the country, open days in our studios or the Nova Festival of Tastes itself. It has already established itself as one of the most successful gastronomic events in the Czech Republic. We collect feedback from visitors to our events, which we try to reflect in our work so that the experience is always as good as possible,” says TV Nova Marketing Director Jakub Folauf. Bestsport director Robert Schaffer adds: “When we first prepared the festival four years ago together with Nova, I really would not have thought that after the third year the O₂ universum would start to feel small. I am very happy about the interest in this event among the public.”

“The atmosphere here is nicer every year. It is truly breathtaking and enchanting. There were even two giant Mexican waves. And we are at a food festival! I spoke to visitors who were here for the first time this year, and they said that next year they would buy a ticket for the whole weekend,” describes presenter Kristina Kloubková, who hosted the program on the main stage with Roman Staša. This was where chefs from exhibiting restaurants competed against well-known “television chefs.”

“It was perfect. There was a huge interest in the festival, a lot of people came to see it. It’s fantastic how it grows year after year. I’ve probably never taken so many photos in my life and given so many smiles as in these two days,” summed up his feelings Jan Punčochář immediately after his last fight. “All classic food festivals are in the summer, and the Nova Festival of Tastes is brilliant in that it’s in the winter, because there’s nothing better than coming here in this weather and tasting food from top restaurants from all over the Czech Republic under one roof,” says Přemek Forejt.

A rich accompanying program was also prepared for visitors, such as musical performances by SuperStar participants or interviews and autograph signings by famous actors, presenters, and participants of popular reality shows. People could take pictures with the presenters of Televizné and Sportovné noviny, hunters from the show Na lovu or identical twins Míra and Martin, who are this year’s bachelors. “We traveled around the country. We started in a restaurant in Soběsuky in West Bohemia, then we got to Karlovy Vary and ended up in a new Prague restaurant where we had never been before. We tried to visit establishments whose menus we did not know, or were so far away that we would not be able to get there in one day,” describe the actors Zlata Adamovská and Petr Štěpánek.