June 13-14 is the 21st Bridport Food Festival and it promises to be another delicious and fascinating weekend for all ages, featuring the area’s outstanding food and drink talent—including a new group of passionate local chefs who are volunteering their time to collectively create a unique fundraising feast.
This coalition of the filling includes; 101 Bridport’s Constance Booth, award-winning Cass Titcombe of Brassica, Dorshi’s co-founding chef Radhika Mohandas, chef Mike Beckenham with proprietor Ilaria Padovani of Mercato Italiano, Simon Payne head chef for The Parlour Restaurant at Bredy Farm and Soulshine’s Andy Tyrrell. All are drawing lots to determine who cooks which dishes to produce this very Bridport banquet—with the help too of Asado Fire Kitchen, Dorset Nectar and Selected Grapes.
This team of cooking stars has been brought together this year by Andy Tyrrell, with a vision to galvanise support for the festival and ambitions to make Friday June 13 extremely lucky for some.
‘We have a unique, thriving food scene with incredible local ingredients, food producers, brewers, chefs, writers, cafés and restaurants’ says Andy. ‘This year’s Friday Feast is a rare chance to collaborate more, building a stronger culture whilst raising much-needed funds for our local festival so we can keep building on its success for many years to come. Now more than ever I feel like we should work together to save the things that are for the good of the community.
‘With a stellar line-up of chefs and restaurants the menu will feature courses donated by each of them and finished over a stunning outdoor fire kitchen before serving as a long table feast—it will all look as amazing as it tastes. Our main aim is to support the food festival, but as chefs we can’t help but get excited by the chance to create something delicious! This will be the unmissable food-lovers’ event of the year.’
The evenings of Friday 13th and Saturday 14th will also see the traditional accompanying Beer Festival in full swing, boasting a selection of over 100 different ales and ciders plus Pimms and wine bars as well as a pop up Dark Bear Cocktail Bar. All partnered by live music including Shelby’s Elbows, Stylliano, Dusty Brown, Decatonics and an open mic session hosted by Elijah Wolf.
While the Saturday is the main food festival day, showcasing nearly 100 traders selling the best local food and drink for taking home or eating there; from Little Oak Farm’s homegrown lamb burgers to Shuka Calf’s oysters, Indian sweets to Dorset cheeses. Alex Pole will be bringing a stall of his hand-forged indoor and outdoor kitchen equipment for the first time, as well as providing the flames for the Friday Feast.
The festival also programmes an exceptional range of free activities to inspire every generation—from chefs’ demonstrations in The Helen Choudhury Cookery Theatre (including The Taj Mahal Restaurant and gut-health specialist and cookbook writer Helen Ross to hands-on workshops for children with Creative Young Cooks who will be making pedal-powered smoothies, a chicken lunch with New House Farm and welcoming back The Olive Tree Restaurant’s Simon Mazzei-Scaglione who says, ‘We love working with the Young Cooks and seeing them learn to make—and then eat!—delicious mediterranean classics.’ Junior foodies can also enjoy a creative play area for younger children designed by Watercleave’s Debbie Smith and food-inspired art sessions with Jo Burlington of ‘Oops Wow’.
Not everything is about food—but food itself is about so much; community and culture, health and high streets, ecology and economy, comfort and celebrations.
Bridport Food Matters will be exploring many of these themes in their marquee and celebrating the town’s newly won status as one of a national network of ‘Sustainable Food Places’. Acclaimed podcaster and regenerative agriculturalist Ffinlo Costain will be hosting lively panel discussions about ‘why is soil key to adapting to climate change?’ and ‘what is the hidden cost of ultra processed food?’ Panellists will include Leila Scriven (Tamarisk Farm), Alex Montgomery (Generation Soil UK), Tim Williams (Earth Farmers), Dr Sue Beckers (Real Food Rebellion) and Helen Ross.
Look out too for short films curated by Josef Davies Coates (including Climate Compost from the Somerset House Soil exhibition) and information about other local initiatives including BFM’s proposed community food hub, ‘Nourish’ which aspires to sustaining—all year-round—the festival’s values of enabling good food for all for the decades to come.
