World Curry Festival in the City to spice up Canberra's winter food scene

• UPDATE: World Curry Festival in the City postponed by bad weather

What makes a curry so perfect on a cold Canberra night? There's the sheer warmth, the creamy gentle texture (if you pick a coconut milk based curry), the soft fluffy rice nestled underneath. And then there's the fire from the spice - all that lovely chilli and curry powder.

So when Canberra CBD Limited came up with the idea for a winter curry festival, it was more a case of why didn't we think of it earlier? The World Curry Festival in the City runs on Saturday July 11 and Sunday July 12 in Garema Place.

It's a mix of local Indian restaurants and non-profit community organisations running the stalls - the boys from the Hungry Buddha in Curtin will put together Nepali curries and spicy dumplings. Canberra's Vishnu Shiva Mandir temple will also put on a stall with traditional vegetarian curries.

Sam and Smriti Gupta will run a street food stall, Chit Chaat, during the festival. Chaat is the typical street food of India. "When you think of food in India, you think of butter chicken and naan but we don't have [those dishes] as much as street food," he says. "We miss that and we thought it would be good for everyone to go beyond the typical curries."

Chaat is all about savoury snacks, bits and pieces that are tossed together in roadside stalls. Little potato fritters, a scattering of fried chickpeas, topped with dabs of tamarind sauce, or a swirl of yogurt, for instance. "In essence, what it does is appeals to every single sense. It has that tangy, sweet, sour, chilli, it's like a party in your mouth," Sam Gupta says. "And the first bite you take, it's just brilliant."

Thirst Wine Bar owner and chef Jeff Piper will also be involved, serving up green Thai curry at a stall in Garema Place. There'll be cooking demonstrations from chefs such as Gehan Wadigasinghe from Crowne Casino, who will do a spicy Sri Lankan chicken curry and Arunkumar Aharikkanoy from Garnish of India will prepare a goat rogan josh. And it's not a festival if John Marshall from Mr Frugii isn't involved. He's doing a curry-flavoured ice-cream demonstration.

The World Curry Festival runs from July 11-12 in Garema Place next to the ice skating rink. See inthecitycanberra.com.au