4th Alnwick Food Festival, 20-21 September, 2008

organised by Alnwick Lions Club

A famous visitor to the 2005 Alnwick Food Festival: Jackie Charlton with Alf the Lion (Picture by Jane Ellis Photography)

Alf (Alnwick Local Food) the Lion, our festival mascot, would like to thank the following organisations for supporting the 2008 Alnwick Food Festival. For more details, click here.

Welcome

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EXHIBITORS QUEUE UP

For a list of the food and drink producers who have signed up for the weekend event, click here.

Special guest: Sean Wilson, Coronation Street's
Martin Platt, who will be demonstrating his BBC1 Celebrity Masterchef recipe at Alnwick Playhouse at 3.15pm on food festival Saturday.

There is still a buzz about north Northumberland after the first three Alnwick Food Festivals, held at the end of September in 2005, 2006 and last year. Each were a huge success, drawing big crowds over the weekends into the picturesque, medieval market town of Alnwick, famous as the location for the early Harry Potter films, in the heart of beautiful Northumberland.

The 2008 festival is set to be the most spectacular yet with a new event at The Alnwick Garden, the charity garden established by the Duchess of Northumberland. Alnwick Children's Food Festival promises to be fun, interactive and informative for young visitors to the town on food festival weekend.

Alnwick Beer Festival, organised by Alnwick Round Table will also be held on food festival weekend. Don't miss the large selection of local ales in the Town Hall.

Since the launch of the Alnwick Food Festival, the town has been named as the sixth best place for gastronomic activity in the country by a new guide to British food. The BMW 1 Series Good Food Ride said Alnwick’s restaurants, food festival and farmers’ markets have contributed to a thriving ‘gastrohub’. To be placed in the book’s top 20, each destination had to reach certain criteria which the panel of judges felt were necessary to be defined as a gastrohub. Each place had to hold a farmers’ market, have a traditional dish or destination ingredient, hold a food festival, have a food hero who is passionate about local sourcing and a Michelin-starred restaurant, the only category Alnwick failed in. Click here for more.

Alnwick is set to be the culinary capital of Northumberland again when the fourth food festival hits the town on September 20/21, 2008. Organisers Alnwick Lions have packed this festival with even more food fun and gastronomical games.

For a full timetable of events look out for the food festival programme on the day or beforehand at the Northumberland Gazette, Alnwick Tourist Information Centre and Alnwick Playhouse.

What they said:

TV personality Kathy Secker, founder of the Grace House Children's Hospice Appeal, who appeared at the 2005 Alnwick Food Festival.

You & your fellow Lions must be so proud of yourselves, what an achievement. It was an absolutely fantastic Food Festival and it was good to see Alnwick buzzing with people. The Ready, Steady, Cook was great fun and I think the audience enjoyed it every bit as much as we did. The chefs were superb and Terry (Miller, Hell's Kitchen winner) was great fun, a big man with a big heart, " said local TV and radio personality Kathy Secker, who took part in the Alnwick Food Festival's Ready, Steady Cook-style competition and who is also founder of the Grace House North East Children's Hospice appeal to raise £3.5million to build a children's hospice in the North East, one of the charities supported by the food festival.