Five days of culinary fun at Truro Food Festival

TRURO Food Festival returns to Lemon Quay this month for five days of food, drink, live cooking and entertainment in the heart of the city.

From Wednesday, September 23 to Sunday, September 27, the festival will gather more than 30 chefs, independent producers, street food, festival bars, live music, workshops and hands-on experiences - with the main daytime festival free to attend.

Michelin-starred chef Adam Handling MBE, best known for his restaurants Ugly Butterfly and The Tartan Fox, makes his first appearance at the Festival. He joins a diverse Chef’s Theatre line-up including MasterChef: The Professionals finalist Charlie Walters, now chef-patron at Narla in Fowey; Ben Prior of Porthminster Beach Café in St Ives; Stephane Delourme, former head chef at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant in Padstow; and Kate Attlee of Cornish-Iranian food chain Sabzi.

Chefs travelling from further afield include private celebrity chef and social media influencer Nisha Parmar, and Ayesha Kalaji of Jordanian cuisine destination Queen of Cups in Glastonbury.

At the heart of this year’s festival is the Chef’s Theatre, inhabiting two linked tipis on Lemon Quay. There, spectators can explore an enormous range of flavours and cooking styles, discovering new chefs alongside some of the biggest names on the programme – all daytime demonstrations are free to watch.

In the evenings, the Chef’s Tipi will transform to host a series of intimate Chef’s Table Feasts, with 30 guests gathering around shared tables each evening for a welcome drink and three-course feast (tickets: £85 per person).

Bango Kitchen opens the series on Thursday with a Pan-Asian feast packed with bold flavours including sushi, Korean barbecue and live-fire cooking; on Friday, Nisha Parmar brings Indian-inspired flavours on Friday; and on Saturday, New Zealand-born Māori chef Matthew Burgess – aka matblak – creates an evening influenced by Māori food culture. Both Nisha and Matthew appear in collaboration with Cornwall’s Woodfired Canteen.

The Producer Village will fill Lemon Quay with independent producers, growers and makers, while a packed Street Food area will fill bellies with flavours from Cornwall and around the world. The Live Music Stage and Street Food areas are supported by The Buttermarket food hall in Redruth, reflecting a shared ambition to champion Cornwall’s independent food businesses, all year round.

Truro Food Festival’s in-house bar on Lemon Quay will unite local and visiting producers and brands, with drinks partners including St Ives Brewery, Budvar and Navas Drinks.

An expanded programme of workshops and hands-on food experiences has been developed in collaboration with Truro School Cookery School. The smaller bookable sessions will give people the chance to learn new skills, ingredients and techniques directly from chefs, producers and food experts.

Festival organiser Stewart Girvan said: “We want Truro Food Festival to feel like a real celebration of everything that’s exciting about food and hospitality in Cornwall, while bringing some brilliant friends and chefs from further afield into the city too.

“The thing I’m most excited about is the variety. You can come into Truro, watch some incredible chefs for free, discover a Cornish producer you’ve never met before, grab some street food, listen to live music or book yourself into a workshop or feast.

“More than anything, we want people to come into the city, stay for a few hours, discover something new and enjoy what should be five brilliant days in Truro.”

For the full festival programme, visit trurofoodfestival.co.uk.