Discover the London Restaurant Festival
London Restaurant Festival
8th-13th October
First, a warning. Do not read this on an empty stomach because we’re willing to bet that you’ll be raiding the fridge or rifling through the biscuit tin before you’ve got to the end. The reason? The host of gourmet delights that comprise the first ever London Restaurant Festival.
Visitors should head for London Restaurant Festival’s information centre, located in an airstream trailer on the Piazza, to book tickets and get details on exclusive foodie events in the capital. While there, don’t forget to check out the gourmet treats from the extended Real Food Market, with four top restaurants operating guest stalls from Thursday 8th to Sunday 11th October during the Festival. You can also try keenly-priced exclusive London Restaurant Festival menus, available at popular Covent Garden dining spots such as Fire & Stone (check out its massive pizza oven), Porters, Maxwells, Tuttons Brasserie and many more. Those visiting on the 8th can check out the PizzaExpress Dough Acrobats at work, with lessons on spinning and tossing for those who’d like to try it at home. And where will you find fabulously fast dough-flinging fellas? On the Piazza, naturally.
With events happening right across the capital, there’s something to tickle even the most jaded of palates. On Saturday 10th October you can see chefs and food critics battling it out at Starter for Ten, held at Vinopolis on Bankside. Presided over by legendary quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne, this exciting event sees four top chefs go head to head with four legendary food critics in a restaurant knowledge-related fight for foodie supremacy. Angela Hartnett, Richard Corrigan, Giles Coren and Matthew Norman are among the fiercely competitive participants looking to make their respective professions proud.
Fans of fine food and films should also check out Eat Film, a series of movie screenings at locations such as the Barbican, the Charlotte Street Hotel and the Soho Hotel. The premise is simple. Remember how hungry you felt when Ray Liotta was cooking up his long-simmering meatball pasta dish in Goodfellas? Well now you can sample that very meal in a nearby restaurant immediately after watching the movie. Films such as Jamon, Ratatouille, Julie and Julia and Tom Jones have similarly enticing dining options. The multi-course Taiwanese banquet following Eat, Drink, Man, Woman gets our vote.
There’s also a landmark lecture planned, delivered by historian and broadcaster Simon Schama on Sunday 11th October. Held at King’s Place in King’s Cross, it will explore the history of our relationship with food and restaurants and how this fits into our society. It promises to be a fascinating look at the fundamentals of eating out and, with limited tickets available, we’d encourage you to move quickly if you want to attend. Tickets are, rather aptly, going like hot cakes. Ticket price includes a delicious mini-brunch courtesy of local dining hotspot Green & Fortune.
Elsewhere, fine food fans can enjoy meals by candlelight on the London Eye, with a course served during each 30 minute revolution, and top chefs such as Gordon Ramsay doing the cooking. For more information on how to place a sealed bid to secure a spot on this gourmet trip, contact Blanche Vaughan at Starlight Children‘s Foundation: 020 7262 2881.
Staying up in the heights, renowned chef Pierre Koffman has created a ‘pop-up’ 80 seat restaurant which will run for two weeks on the roof of Selfridges. He’s used his considerable sway to bring back members of his original culinary brigade, including Tom Kitchin, Eric Chavot, Tom Aikens, Raphael Duntoye, Helena Puolakka and William Curley, now all highly reputed head chefs in their own right. It’s like a culinary A-Team reforming, with Koffman as Hannibal, obviously.
Back on terra firma, there’s a massive Sunday Roast for 800 people on 11th October at London’s Leadenhall Market. Chefs such as John Torode (Masterchef), Fergus Henderson and Mark Hix will be manning the stoves while hundreds of people sit down to trestle tables groaning with choice cuts of roast meats.
All this plus a Gourmet Odyssey road trip via a RouteMaster bus with each course served in a different top restaurant, a chefs vs critics food quiz and a pop-up restaurant from the infamous team behind Bistrotheque, held in a Grade II listed Masonic Temple.
There will also be booking signings on the Piazza
Calling all of the capital’s culinary adventurers – your time is now
