Will Torrent, Andre Garrett, Dominic Chapman and Adam Simmonds joined forces with food and drinks suppliers from across the UK to celebrate the ‘best of British’ at the first-ever British Food Festival, launched at Windsor Racecourse last weekend.
The event, which aimed to give small and medium British suppliers the opportunity to showcase their products, played host to a number of food demonstrations by the chefs during the two-day festival.
As part of the demonstrations, visitors were able to learn about British produce, as well sample products from a broad range of companies.
The chefs were joined by food and drinks producers from Berkshire, Yorkshire, Devon and Norfolk at the event, who shared British produce such as gin, wine, cheese, chocolate, meat, breads, vegetables, pies, sauces and pickles.
Suppliers included Black Cow Vodka, the Dorset-based company which makes its spirits from the milk of cows; the Windsor and Eton Brewery who offered beer sampling and tutorials, and Yorkshire Wagyu Co, who breed the specific breed of cattle to produce high-end wagyu beef.
Paul Brennan, organiser, British Food Festival, said: “We are absolutely delighted with the level of interest shown in the first-ever British Food Festival.
“We took great care in selecting the very best suppliers from across the UK to showcase their brilliant and innovative produce. We have so many growers and producers here and hope that events such as this can really shine a light on the great work that so many small and medium suppliers are doing.
“We hope that this will be the first of many such events we launch across the UK.”
Will Torrent, the award-winning pastry chef, added: “We’ve had an absolutely brilliant couple of days in Royal Windsor at the first British Food Festival and we’ve really celebrated the best of British food and drinks.
“The calibre of chefs I’ve had the pleasure of hosting in the Cookery Theatre has been amazing and not only have we had some fun, we’ve also talked about the importance of celebrating British food, as well as looking at subjects like sustainability, seasonality and skills. I can’t wait for the next event.”