Keep your eyes peeled for some great foodie events coming up in 2015
We are spoilt for choice when it comes to food festivals, so if you don’t know where to start get your calendar ready because we’ve rounded a few top events for the year ahead.
25th-31st January – Nationwide
Kick start the year as you mean to start every morning, with a full, hearty and healthy breakfast. This annual, week-long celebration of the great morning meal is the UK’s biggest celebration of breakfast. Every year hundreds of events and organisations get involved to give a big cheer for the cereal farmers of Blighty. It’s a full-on week of blueberry pancakes, savoury muffins, eggs on toast, porridge in a bowl or in a jar and anything else you just love to snaffle in the morning. As far as mouth watering visuals go it’s a Pinterest dream. We’ll be taking part again this year (here’s peek at what went on in 2014), so we’ll see you over breakfast!
20th Feb-1st March – Newcastle
One of the earliest festivals on the foodie calendar is EAT! IN up t’North. Following the runaway success of Eat! Newcastle Gateshead in the summer, the organisers have planned a similarly jam-packed event, but in the warmth and cosiness of the indoors. We’re thinking of starting the year as we mean to go on: with a glitzy drink-along-movie experience, immersed in the world of F. S. Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby. A four course-foraged meal to the mellifluous melodies of a concert pianist performing the likes of Bach and Rachmaninoff is on the cards as is a Medieval Lenten Feast at St Nicholas’ Cathedral, complete with Celtic Harp. A medley of the provocative and sumptuous – this is a festival to blast away the winter blues.
13th-15th March – Surrey
Cake Making and Sugar Craft Exhibition
Sugar and spice and all things nice await you in March, with an event dedicated entirely to cake. Squires Kitchen hosts the longest running sugar craft and cake making exhibition in the whole of Europe. 2015 will be its 29th year and Farnham will be glistening with edible glamour. Wedding cakes, mini classes, stunning artistic exhibitions and not forgetting the master chocolatiers, will all be whisking up a sugary storm. If you have a sweet tooth and an eye for the exquisite, this event should be firmly marked on your calendar.
28th-29th March – Brighton
It gets bigger and better every year, and is the ultimate meat-free festival for veggies and vegans. It’s so good that even carnivores love it. Discover a whole host of dreamy treats and exciting foods made with absolutely no animal products, as well an awesome line-up of music, talks and classes throughout the weekend. You can often get two tickets for the price of one, if you get in quick. Can’t get to Brighton? No worries, there’s a VegFest in London and Bristol later on the year. Keep an eye on the website for updates.
4th -6th April 2015 – Kent
Broadstairs Food Festival – Spring Fair
Kent’s finest produce displayed for all in a pretty seaside town: can you think of anything more spring-like? It’s just missing a couple of skipping lambs. Inhale the crisp sea air as it mingles with the likes of freshly baked sourdough and sweet, sticky crepes. Bring your tasting spoon to try out the chutneys and jams, and leave the kids happily making their own pizza. Or quite simply grab yourself a hot pasty and people watch, as this is festival attracts those from all walks of life.
29th-31st May – Sussex
It’s May and it’s time to get outside and enjoy the glimpses of sunshine. Brighton and Hove’s Food Festival Spring Harvest is an 11 day event which culminates in the ‘Sussex and the World Weekend’. Hove Lawns will be awash with live food show s; English wines and local beers and ciders will flow; chefs will cook; visitors will taste and the kids will be let loose and free.
20th-21st June – Basingstoke
Lovers of heat and spice take heed and prepared to be blown away by the second of Basingstoke’s Cheese & Chilli festivals. Start practising now for the chilli eating competitions – if you’re after the glory, you have to put in the hours! Don’t worry, they’ll be plenty of ale and cider to wash it all down with and ease those stinging tastebuds. Punch & Judy will be making an appearance and of course there is cheese galore! Bring it on.
7th-9th August – Edinburgh
It was a decade ago that Foodies first launched their first festival in Edinburgh, with a small collection of traders and local food producers and we loved it. We loved it so much that these guys have grown as rapidly as a tomato plant in a well-watered greenhouse, and have gone on to take over the country, bringing their love of good, local food to those country-wide. Celebrate with them at the home of Foodies at their Edinburgh festival or head to one of the other 12 across the country.
Foodies Launch Six New Foodie Festivals
Foodies Festivals are celebrating their 10th anniversary in 2015 and as part of the general merriment they have launched a whopping six new Foodie Festivals in six new locations, so there’s no excuse to miss one this year. From 2015 you’ll find the Foodies in Birmingham Cannon Hill Park; Harrogate Valley Gardens; Syon Park in Richmond, London and Alexandra Palace as well as their two new Christmas festivals at Manchester Central and Edinburgh. This takes the total number of Foodies Festivals up to 13. So get your diary out and start planning, or even visit them all in a Foodie tour for 2015.
11th-13th September – Ludlow
One of the UK’s ultimate food festivals, no one worth their salt misses the Ludlow Food Festival. After two decades of running the festival, the organisers here really know their onions and hundreds of stall holders gather to feed the thousands who visit. In the shadow of Ludlow’s imposing castle you can do anything from take part in a cookery class to follow your nose along a sausage trail (don’t worry there’s a loaf trail if you’re not a sausage fiend). The pubs are involved and there’s a million and one activities to try out.
December – Cornwall
There’s nothing quite like messing around near boats, especially if it’s Christmas time at Padstow harbour. If you missed the Padstow Christmas Festival at the end of 2014, you’ll want to make a note of it for 2015 as it’s a simply dreamy affair. Think twinkling lights, mulled wine and top chefs, like Rick Stein, showing you exactly how to cook like a pro. There are two cookery demonstration tents and the chance to meet the chefs themselves – yep you could find yourself having a pint next Nathan Outlaw or Michael Caines.
