chloedickensonLast Updated on 23rd September 2023
AD | This post about the Great British Food Festival review 2021 contains a review based on gifted press tickets, all thoughts and opinions are entirely my own. Please see my disclaimer for more.
As I’ve gotten older, my love and quite frankly, obsession, with food has only increased with age and the more chances I get to try new foods, or even just try my favourite foods in new and different ways makes me so incredibly happy.
If you’ve been following my blog for a long time now (and if so, thank you so much, it really means the world to me!), you may remember that I attended the Great British Food Festival at Harewood House in 2018, and the team very kindly invited Matt and I back again this year to see what it was all about!
The Great British Food Festival is an annual event where dozens of artisan market stalls, local vendors, street food sellers and much, much more come together for a couple of days at a time in various locations across the UK to host the most incredible food festival of the year! It’s an incredibly fun, family-friendly, foodie-orientated day out that absolutely everyone can enjoy, and if you’re looking to add more events to your diary this year (especially after the atrocities of the last year or so), I’d highly recommend pencilling in a date at one of the nine remaining dates/venues at the Great British Food Festival in 2021!
If you still need a bit of convincing, check out my review of our time at the GBFF at Harewood House a couple of weeks ago to inspire you to head to one of the remaining venues yourself!
Artisan market stalls – Great British Food Festival review 2021
The Great British Food Festival at Harewood House near Leeds was hosted across three days this year, over the Bank Holiday in May. We went on the final day of the festival and if its busyness was anything to go by (and the fact that all the tickets had sold out!), I imagine that the rest of this year’s dates are going to be just as busy.
Harewood House is a truly stunning location to host this kind of event, and the grounds of the house are so vast that they make the perfect place for food vendors and market sellers to set up.
With Covid-19 safety measures in place, there was a one-way system walkway at the Harewood House food festival and while this meant that you couldn’t just walk about anywhere at any time, it was great to see these kinds of measures in place and it made everything much more streamlined and safe.
As you wander around, you’ll find dozens of artisan market stalls with vendors from far and wide, plus a whole host of locals selling their produce. Ranging from fancy chocolate brownies, to decadent cupcakes, a vast variety of meat produce (including a vendor who was selling the most delicious homemade pork and apple sausages!), to homemade Moonshine, gin, potato vodka and so much more!
Many vendors even offer free samples which is such a lovely touch and a sure-fire way to convince you to buy! From the many stalls to choose from, it was hard to pick just a few things to buy (not that there’s a limit – you can buy as much as you want/can carry!), but we picked up some chorizo pork scratchings from Piggin Yummy, a Yorkshire pudding flavoured beer, plus a chocolate orange cupcake (pictured above), a decadent chocolate brownie, some black pepper salami from Continental Cottage and some Crazy Canary “Volcanic Fury” hot sauce. That’s not even mentioning the food we got from the street food stalls…!
Food stalls at Harewood House
I don’t know exactly what the food stall situation will be like at all the other GBFF events this year, but if they’re anything like the ones at Harewood House, you’re in for a real treat (and quite the predicament!) when it comes to choosing where to eat!
From a steak sandwich stall, to Vietnamese, Indian, Italian, Lebanese, Greek food and more, there are so many different kinds of cuisines and dishes to choose from at the Great British Food Festival.
We literally walked up and down the food stalls three times trying to decide what we wanted to eat. Last time I was at the food festival, I had a steak sandwich which was absolutely delightful, but we went for something a little different this time.
The Authentic Lebanese Street Food stall caught our eye numerous times as we were walking around and after reading the menu, it’s the place that we settled on to grab a “proper” bite to eat.
While there were many things I could have eaten from the menu, we opted for the loaded Lebanese fries which consisted of salt and paprika fries, topped with marinated chicken, red onion, tomato and a dollop of mint yoghurt. I’m a big fan of any kind of loaded fries anyway and I was delighted that these lived up to our expectations.
The only qualm I had was that we were only given the tiniest, flimsiest wooden fork to eat them with, but in terms of Covid-19 safety measures, it made sense for all the stalls to do this, it was just pretty difficult to eat with!
Bars
As well as plenty of food stalls to sate your appetite, there was also a huge bar area at the Harewood House Great British Food Festival, however, due to You Know What, you did have to make a booking to sit there for a drink. This didn’t dissuade us from doing so, but as one of us had to drive home back to York after the event, we agreed that neither of us would drink so that it was fair!
Chef demos at the Great British Food Festival review 2021
As if the chance to try out samples of food and actually get proper bites to eat wasn’t enough, there are also numerous chef demonstrations that go on throughout the day at GBFF.
Depending on which venue/date you attend will depend on which chef is hosting a demo at what time, but there’s often special celebrity guest chefs and bakers who put on a real show when it comes to showing off their cookery skills and it’s always so great to see professionals creating wondrous culinary concoctions in real life!
Mini zoo
A part of the event that wasn’t there last time I attended was the mini zoo section; Wildlife Displays are visiting every GBFF venue this year (except from Trentham Gardens) with their collection of animals ranging from goats, pigs, meerkats, guinea pigs, snakes and even tarantulas 😬. While I think this addition to the festival is incredibly cool, especially if you’re visiting with kids in tow, it’s really not my kind of thing (largely due to the fact that there were spiders as I hate them!
Grow your own
New to the 2021 Great British Food Festival scene is the ‘Grow Your Own’ stage in which you’ll be provided with knowledge and expertise to grow your own produce and you can even get your own growing kit to take away with you so that you can have a go of growing produce yourself at home!
We just missed out on a demonstration of this while we were there, but if you’re going to a GBFF venue that’s hosting the ‘Grow Your Own’ stage, it might be worthing checking out, especially if you’ve got a penchant for being green-fingered!
Live music
While the atmosphere at the Great British Food Festival is more than enjoyable enough in itself, there’s also a live music stage which can be heard from pretty much anywhere at the festival to help keep things fun and lively throughout the day.
From local bands, to awesome solo artists, the music scene at GBFF provides a great ambience for the entire day.
Venues and dates for The Great British Food Festival 2021
If you’re thinking about attending the Great British Food Festival 2021 event, check out the dates and venues below to see which venue is closest to you! If you do attend the Great British Food Festival this year, be sure to let me know!
- Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire – 19th-20th June 2021
- Lowther Castle, Cumbria – 3rd-4th July 2021
- Trentham Gardens, Staffordshire – 10th-11th July 2021
- Knebworth House, Hertfordshire – 17th-18th July 2021
- Helmingham Hall, East Anglia – 24th-25th July 2021
- Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire – 30th July-1st August 2021
- Margam Park, South Wales – 4th-5th September 2021
- Dalkeith Country Park, Midlothian – 11th-12th September 2021
- Arley Hall, Cheshire – 25th-26th September 2021
Related posts:
- Great British Food Festival Harewood House 2018
- The Ultimate Food Bucket List – Best Dishes From Around The World
- The Best Food I’ve Ever Eaten On Holiday
Pin for later – Great British Food Festival review
Have you ever been to a Great British Food Festival event? Will you be attending any of the dates for the Great British Food Festival in 2021? Let me know in the comments or on Instagram @imjustagirl_16.
