Soho Food Feast | London’s Most Gourmet School Fête Returns
It’s hard to leave a food festival without feeling a teeny bit guilty…
…normally because you’ve just dedicated a whole day to stuffing your face with as much food as possible. However, at Soho Food Feast, now heading into its 11th year, those feelings of guilt are a little less severe. That’s because the gluttony is all in aid of a cracking cause – the festival’s main goal is to raise funds for Soho Parish Primary, so that they can continue to support and finance new students.
How does it manage that then? Only by inviting over 30 of Soho’s finest eating establishments (and a few from further afield) to sling snack-sized versions of their signature dishes, with all proceeds going straight to the school.
Founded by Margot Henderson – owner-operator of the wonderful Rochelle Canteen, an East London restaurant hidden behind a school bike shed – this year’s shindig will take place on the weekend of the 10th and 11th of June. As is the custom, it’ll be setting up in St Anne’s Churchyard Gardens on Wardour Street, and the lineup of restaurants pitching in is a good’un. To pick them, it seems like they’ve grabbed a handful of names out of a bag containing all of London’s best restaurants – Rochelle Canteen, Kricket, St. John, Brat, Bar Crispin, Norma, Caravel, Nessa and Bao, to name a just a few…
There will, of course, also be plenty of drink on hand to chase it all down with, from cocktails to beer and wine (as well as non- alcoholic options for those abstaining).
In a new addition to this year, there’s going to be a preview dinner held on the Friday, in the gardens, hosted by none other than Margot herself. She’s invited a few of her chef friends along for the ride (Caravel’s Fin and Lorcan Spiteri, The French House‘s Neil Borthwick, Apricity’s Chantelle Nicholson and pastry extraordinaire, Ravneet Gill) with each getting to prepare a course of their own. The menu (£120pp) is a secret for now, but the dishes will be paired with wines picked by Top Cuvée, which can only be a good thing as they’re one of London’s leading wine bars.
If you can’t make that, then fear not – the main event still has plenty going on besides the food. There’ll also be cooking demos, food talks and live music… all the usual food festival shenanigans. And the kids get their fair share too, via face-painting, arts and crafts, and the return of the prestigious vegetable sculpture-making competition.
Finally you can be proud of them for playing with their food.
NOTE: Soho Food Feast takes place from the 10th-11th of June. Tickets cost £15 (free for children under 16) and you can then get the food tokens upon entry. Purchase tickets here.
ALSO NOTE: The food does tend to run out (in the past by 3-4pm), so it’s better to arrive early than fashionably late if you want to snag the popular stuff.
St Anne’s Gardens | Wardour Street, W1D 6QZ
After-party? Head down to one of these great Soho pubs