The 2025 GTCO Food Drink Festival gathered chefs, families, and food lovers in Lagos to celebrate culture, cuisine, and community over one powerful weekend
For one sun-splashed weekend in May, the grounds of the GTCentre in Victoria Island transformed into a sensory playground of flavour, colour, and community.
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Between May 2nd and 4th, Lagos State played host to the 8th GTCO Food & Drink Festival, widely regarded as Africa’s largest and most inclusive culinary celebration.
The festival’s 2025 edition was framed around a simple but profound theme: “A Shared Experience.”
In Nigeria, a country marked by rich regional cuisines, linguistic diversity, and vibrant subcultures, food remains one of the few things that truly unites. GTCO embraced this truth and amplified it.
Over three days, more than 204 food vendors created a buzzing marketplace of everything edible. Smoky suya, gourmet puff-puffs, afro-fusion tapas, plant-based pepper soup and a range of dizzying and deeply Nigerian cuisines.
Vendors from across the country and the diaspora lined the festival grounds, offering flavours that told stories of childhood, migration, resistance, and reinvention.
It was also about learning. Eleven of the world’s most dynamic culinary voices led masterclasses that doubled as performances.
Among them were acclaimed chefs like Hiroo Nagahara, Thomas Zacharias, Daniel Galmiche, and Lasheeda Perry, each sharing recipes and philosophies on sustainability, cultural memory, and the politics of the plate.
Food remains one of the few things that truly unites.
Nigerian chefs brought their own genius, showing how jollof is more of a battleground and a bridge than just a mere dish.
What continues to set the GTCO Food & Drink Festival apart is not just its scale, but its accessibility.
Admission, like in previous years, was entirely free. From culinary students to foodies, from industry professionals to families out on a Saturday stroll, everyone could participate in the experience.
The festival also carved out space for street food. A dedicated arena pulsed with the energy of open grills and live music, where the scent of charcoal mingled with the laughter of strangers.
Side by side with curated tasting rooms were vendors serving ewa aganyin (mashed beans and its unique sauce) from enamel pots, proof that Nigeria’s food future does not abandon the past.
Children were not left out either. The family zone offered storytelling workshops, mini cooking classes, and kid-sized culinary challenges.
Behind the flavour and festivities lies an ambitious vision: supporting small and medium food enterprises (SMEs).
GTCO, through this platform, offers vendors exposure, logistics support, and retail presence without cost. This year’s vendor count alone highlights how vital that support has become.
The impact goes beyond the gates of the GTCentre. The festival fuels the tourism sector, spikes hospitality bookings, and draws media attention from across Africa and beyond.
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According to media reports, the event has now become a key pillar in Nigeria’s soft power strategy, positioning the country as not only a cultural giant but a gastronomic one too.
