Culinary Arts Award

The Culinary Arts Award was launched by the Ministry of Culture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as part of the National Cultural Awards initiative announced in 2019. Its first edition was launched in June 2020. The award honors individuals who contribute to enriching the culinary field and make a tangible impact on it.

The Culinary Arts Award aims to establish a database in the culinary field as an emerging field and preserve the Saudi heritage in the culinary arts field. The award targets individuals interested in culinary arts, freelancers, and Saudi chefs both locally and internationally.

The award has specific conditions that applicants must meet, including that they hold Saudi nationality or were born to a Saudi woman. The applicant must be at least twenty-one years old. The applicant must hold all the general and intellectual rights of the submitted work or possess at least partial ownership that allows him to apply with the consent of the other parties. The submitted work should have been developed within the two years preceding the application for nomination.

Nominations are accepted in the branches announced by the Ministry of Culture. Nominations that satisfy the conditions progress to the sorting stage, and subsequently, the best of them proceed to the judging stage, where the best nominees are selected based on specific criteria. The winners are then announced during a ceremony sponsored by the Crown Prince, Prime Minister, His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, or his representative.

The top positions for the first edition of the Culinary Arts Award were as follows: First place: Rakan Ibrahim al-Arifi; Second place: The Saudi Zadk Culinary Academy; and Third place: Noura Abdulwahab al-Badran. The winner of the second edition was Abdul Samad al-Hawsawi.