Highlights include a canal boat pub crawl, competitive donut eating and a Fire Garden
Glasses of a new Salford Pale Ale (SPA) created by local brewery First Chop, will be raised on Friday 13 October to toast the official launch of Salford’s Food and Drink Festival fortnight (Friday 13 October to Thursday 26 October). This will take place during a magical Fire Garden event between 6-8pm in Peel Park, Crescent.
The free family event involving music, shadows, fire sculptures, twirling smoke and leaping flames will mark the opening of the thirteenth Salford Food and Drink festival; fourteen days celebrating the city's food and drink heroes.
Now in its thirteenth year, organisers will follow this with a jam-packed couple of weeks full of food and drink themed events to celebrate tasty, local treats.
On Thursday 12, between 11am-3pm, sweet toothed visitors can enjoy New Bailey’s first cake-themed street food pop-up, which will include a unique bake-sale, live music, a doughnut eating competition, glitter station, artisan coffee and delicious cakes from some of the city's favourite bakers; including Raw Bake Station, The Dish Ran Away from The Spoon and vegan artisan bakery, Nicely Kitchen.
At 6.30pm on the evening of Thursday 19 October, hospitality and catering students from Salford City College will create a seven course tasting menu at their Glasshouse Restaurant, for only £16.50 per person. Over at St Sebastian Community Centre, the Independent Salford Beer Festival is back for its fourth year with more first time beers and live music from local bands.
Other festival highlights include a canal boat pub crawl in Worsley with local historian Mark Charnley and Broadside ballad singer Jennifer Reid, an apple ‘pie-off’ between grown-ups and junior cooks along with a huge menu of fun, food and drinks to sample.
Local food and drink heroes Sourced in Salford, a community project whose aim is to create food-related opportunities to assist positive change and improvement for the people of Broughton and Salford, will cook and serve the cheapest two course meal in Greater Manchester at The Naz Community Centre.
There will also be an opportunity to learn how to feed yourself for free with foraging walks and mushroom magic in Monton with an expert around Salford’s country parks.
The festival will close with a special Foodies evening at The Hotel Campanile on Monday 23, with an opportunity to try the new Café Campanile menu (sure to be a highlight), taste beers from local brewery First Chop, including the new Salford Pale Ale, and coffee from Kimbo Coffee.
Councillor Ann-Marie Humphreys, executive support member for culture leisure and sport, said: “Salford offers a huge buffet of well established and popular restaurants, cafes and pubs which have been joined this year by many new venues. They’re all food and drink heroes and we want to celebrate every one.
“We’ve seen new places open in Monton, along Chapel Street and at Salford Quays so we’re throwing open the doors of the city and inviting everyone to come in and have a taste.”
See www.salfordfoodandrink.com for full details of events, offers and competitions.
