Marinilla al Plato 2026: The Antioquia Food Festival Worth a Day Trip From Medellín This Week

The Marinilla al Plato 2026 food festival is in its final stretch — and if you are based in Medellín, the town of Marinilla is just over 45 minutes away by road. The fourth edition runs June 26 through July 5, 2026, with more than 100 restaurants, cooks, and food ventures concentrated in and around Marinilla’s historic center, according to MiOriente. Four days remain before it closes — making today one of the last windows for a day trip to Oriente Antioqueño.

What Is Marinilla al Plato?

Now in its fourth year, Marinilla al Plato began as a local effort to spotlight the culinary identity of Oriente Antioqueño — the mountainous subregion east of Medellín that includes Marinilla, Rionegro, El Retiro, and El Peñol. The festival concentrates more than 100 gastronomic proposals — restaurants, independent cooks, artisan producers, and food enterprises — with the declared goal of positioning Marinilla as a reference point for food tourism in Antioquia, according to DiariOriente.

Organizers projected this edition would draw more than 20,000 visitors, exceeding attendance from previous years, per La Prensa Oriente.

The Gastronomic Congress: June 26–28

The academic centerpiece of the festival was the Second Gastronomic Congress Marinilla al Plato, held June 26–28 in the municipality’s main park (Parque Principal). The congress brought together culinary voices from across Colombia — including speakers from Popayán, Bogotá, and Cartagena — for panels covering gastronomic tourism, culinary innovation, and food as a driver of economic and cultural development, reported MiOriente.

Featured speakers included Miriam Armenta Valencia, a bearer of the ancestral culinary traditions of Popayán’s cuisine from Cauca, and Carlos “Toto” Sánchez, a Colombian gastronomic researcher and chef.

The congress is over, but the broader festival program — with its full complement of participating kitchens and food vendors — runs through July 5.

National Recognition: Joining Colombia’s Festival Network

The development that raised this edition’s profile most is Marinilla al Plato’s inclusion in the Red de Eventos Gastronómicos de Colombia a la Mesa, a national network that groups food festivals with a strategic role in promoting gastronomy as a tourism product with international projection, according to El Colombiano.

Membership places Marinilla al Plato alongside better-known national food events and signals that the festival has matured past its purely local origins. The Colombia a la Mesa framework explicitly emphasizes the cultural value of regional cuisines and their reach beyond their home territories — so inclusion is not just ceremonial.

Making the Day Trip from Medellín

Marinilla sits on the Autopista Medellín–Bogotá in the Altiplano of Oriente Antioqueño, roughly 45 kilometers east of the city. The drive typically takes 45 minutes to an hour from central Medellín, depending on traffic and tunnel flow at La Quiebra.

Buses to Marinilla depart regularly from Terminal del Sur (also called Terminal de Transporte del Sur) in Medellín. The town is also reachable from Terminal del Norte. Fares and schedules vary by operator; check current departure times at the terminal or through your preferred transport app before heading out.

The festival area centers on the Parque Principal and surrounding streets of Marinilla’s historic center. Arriving late morning gives you time to work through several participating kitchens before returning to Medellín in the evening.

Why This Matters for Medellín’s Food Scene

Marinilla al Plato’s growth reflects a regional trend worth tracking: the food identity of Oriente Antioqueño, historically rooted in foundational Paisa staples, is being actively repositioned as a destination-level proposition for both domestic and international visitors.

For expats and long-term residents who have already been following Medellín’s restaurant evolution — from the chef-driven openings covered in our July 2026 restaurant news roundup to the city’s recent recognition on Time Out’s global food city ranking — Marinilla al Plato offers a complementary angle: what Antioquia’s food culture looks like when you leave the city and head into the countryside.

That countryside is 45 minutes away. The festival closes July 5.