Liverpool Food and Drink Festival 2014

This time last week, the Liverpool Food and Drink Festival was just about to kick off with our inaugural Friday night event, which saw us stage the North’s biggest ever pub quiz and a brilliant ‘Q and A’ session with celebrity chef, Tom Kerridge. The Friday ‘Celebration of the Great British pub’ event was a great way to launch our 3 day foodie festival, which was a fantastic success! Thousands of food lovers flocked to join us at Sefton Park over the weekend for the annual highlight on every North West foodie’s calendar, and we actually saw record numbers head to the festival, which is now in its seventh year, with 45,000+ people attending! Yotam Ottolenghi and Tom Kerridge joined more than 160 Merseyside chefs and regional producers to serve up a giant open-air feast, and both top chefs also demonstrated recipes from their latest books and took part in their own Q&A sessions and book signings during the course of the weekend. Foodies were also treated to a programme packed full of live demos from celebrity chefs, as well as chefs from the likes of Lunya and Button Street Smokehouse. The Art School by Paul Askew brought a pop-up fine dining restaurant to the festival, whilst caterers Pickled Walnut treated punters to a pop-up gastro pub. Liverpool John Moores University gave visitors the chance to learn about the science of food with a whole area dedicated to weird and wonderful foods, featuring everything from an innovative new algae derived ingredient to the world’s hottest chillis. Visit Isle of Man brought a taste of its most famous delicacies to the festival, from Manx kippers to queenies. There was also an Edible Garden, Real Ale Festival, Heavenly Chocolate Garden, Street Food Zone, Pub Quiz and music from talented local musicians. There was plenty for budding young food lovers to enjoy too with a dedicated children’s zone, where Love Food Hate Waste brought a whole host of activities such as herb planting and potato harvesting. There was even an opportunity for children to make their own food creations in a series of specially designed cookery workshops by Kidz Kitchen. There was lots of free samples on offer from the likes of Propercorn, Popchips, Urban Fruit and Bear Nibbles, and all visitors received a free goodie bag, courtesy of Lidl, once inside the showground. We have been blown away by the huge turnout this year. Liverpool Food and Drink Festival gets bigger and better every year, and the standard of our city’s great restaurants and bars at the moment is fantastic, so it’s brilliant to celebrate them with you each year.