It takes a village to raise a fledgeling culinary arts festival, was the word from organiser Stephan Juliusburger this week as the final preparations for the Culinary Arts Festival were completed.

This year?s Culinary Arts Festival will feature competitions and demonstrations by food and wine celebrities in a specially designed village set up in the exhibition ring of the Botanical Gardens. It is being sponsored by Viking Equipment.

Last year, the Culinary Arts Festival was held at the Southampton Princess, but this year it has outgrown that location. ?The Festival now belongs to Bermuda,? said Mr. Juliusburger. ?It needs to be out in Bermuda. We never could have done this all happening at once in the Southampton Fairmont. They admit that and we admit that. We looked at it and said ?it can?t happen, we are going to have to build this?.

?Next year will be much larger than this year. We may outgrow the exhibition ring and have to be in some of the other grounds of the Botanical Gardens as well.?

Some of the events of the three-day festival will be held outside of the Botanical Gardens including the Grillin? and Chillin? event which will be held at the Bermuda Aquarium Museum & Zoo, and the Sunday brunch which will be held at Wadson?s Farm.

There will also be special dinners at a number of Bermuda?s top restaurants. ?I am so passionate about this,? said Mr. Juliusburger. ?This is what I saw when I was producing the festival last year. This is just the one year of the evolution of the festival.

?After that we may take over the entire Botanical Islands for the week. We are already talking to the Corporation of Hamilton about maybe doing something on Front Street next year.

?We will take this as far as the island wants us to take it. We see it as being enormously fun, educational and relevant.?

The Viking Village will include a grand tasting tent with special book signing areas, concession stands and inside the larger tent - four cooking demonstration tents. ?The Viking Village is so amazing,? said Mr. Juliusburger, who designed the village. ?In each of these demo tents each tent will have a full live stage on it with a full built kitchen that is being designed by Design Associates. They will have beautiful cabinetry and plasma screens.

?People will sit down and watch chefs do their demonstrations. During the course of the afternoon there will be all these wonderful demos coming in.?

The event will be opened by celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain author of ?Cooking Confidential?, and host of the television programme ?Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations?.

Over the weekend there will be cooking demonstrations given by celebrity chefs such as Todd English, Rahman Harper, Cindy Huston, Michael Lomanaco, Pino Maffeo, Laurence & Michael Gottleib, Tom Parlo & Clay Conley, Dave Lieberman, and Richard Sandoval. In the grand tasting tent there will be food and wine from the different chefs participating plus a display of Bermuda products such as the cakes of Linda Horton, and Outerbridge?s Sherry Peppers. Goslings will be helping with the wine.

The battle to find the best professional and amateur fish chowder will be going on all weekend. The highlight of the Festival will be the finals of the Escoffier Cup, which will be an iron-chef style competition.

?We will take two tents and take the walls down and turn it into a side by side live cook off where these guys will be going at it right next to each other,? said Mr. Juliusburger. ?That will be really interesting. The winners will be announced immediately after. This is something that Bermuda has never seen.?