Festival of Food & Wine 2009
What a week! To be accurate, what a nine days! Fabulous food, fascinating demonstrations, wise-cracking chefs, lip-smacking wines - and heaps of fun.
Our third Festival of Food & Wine (May 17th - May 25th), held exclusively in our Newcastle hotel, was our biggest yet. We kicked off with two well-known faces from television - Paul Rankin doing his Irish-Asian thing, and Simon Rimmer cooking a vegetarian feast - followed by Andrew Pern, from Yorkshire's aptly named Star Inn (where he holds a Michelin star).
Two chefs flew in from France - Orlando Murrin (founding editor of Olive magazine) and ex-local hairdresser, Peter Anderson (now running a luxury ski chalet) - while chef-about-London-town, Mark Hix (formerly of The Ivy and Le Caprice), showed us how wonderful is British food. Trendy young chocolatier, Paul Young, and Sara Jayne Stanes wowed us with their chocolate tasting while Jason Hinds, of Neal's Yard Dairy, made us passionate about cheese.
We had two sparkling Champagne events from Henriot, two super-indulgent afternoon teas, a seafood extravaganze from Roy Brett (Rick Stein's former right-hand man) and a taste bud sensation from our favourite Thai chef, Parichat Somsri-Kirby. The Festival ended on a high with a blistering, Wild West Bank Holiday Barbecue from the Best of British BBQ team. Phew!
If you came to any of the events, we thoroughly enjoyed looking after you, thank you for your support and hope to see you soon.
View the full colour brochure.
