Tabchilli at Sikka Festival: Where Art Met Fermentation

In the heart of Al Fahidi Historical District, where culture and creativity come alive, Tabchilli brought a new kind of experience to the Sikka Art & Design Festival-one that wasn’t just visual or auditory, but edible, living, and gut-healing.

As a featured partner at the festival, Tabchilli hosted a multi-day pop-up and series of fermentation workshops, introducing thousands of festival-goers to the wild world of probiotic foods, kombucha brewing, and vegetable fermentation.

At a festival known for pushing artistic boundaries, we asked a simple but powerful question: Can food be art? The answer-when it’s alive, bubbling, and transforming-was a resounding yes.

What We Brought to Sikka:

• Kombucha workshops: Attendees learned how to grow their own SCOBYs, brew probiotic tea, and safely flavor kombucha at home.
• Vegetable fermentation demos: From cabbage to carrots, we showed how to turn everyday produce into gut-healing ferments using ancient lactic acid fermentation techniques.
• Interactive tastings: Guests sampled our full fermented range-kimchi, sauerkraut, pickles, and hot sauces-while learning about the science behind probiotics and the gut microbiome.
• Kids & families: Special sessions helped young ones connect with healthy food through fun, hands-on activities (and a lot of burping jars).

More than a food stall, this was a fermentation lab meets art space-celebrating the transformation of humble ingredients into something powerful, alive, and healing.

For many visitors, this was their first introduction to raw fermented foods-and for Tabchilli, it was another milestone in building a gut health movement across the UAE.