Manchester’s Festa Italiana, a three-day celebration of Italian food, drink and culture is making an extra special return over the August Bank Holiday weekend.
This free-to-enter weekend-long festival will take over Festival Piazza, Cathedral Gardens on 27th – 29th August with music, street food stalls, pop-up bars and live demos from renowned Italian celebrity chefs.
The event, now in its fourth year after a Covid-enforced break, was born out of Manchester’s Italian community and heritage and has been inspired by many of the traditional regional festivals you’ll find all over Italy. Manchester’s Festa will bring people together to enjoy next level food and drink, mega movies, a very exciting photography exhibition and a stellar selection of authentic live musicians providing a fitting sunny soundtrack.
The 2021 event will see some brand-new features in a varied programme of workshops, demonstrations, book signings and banquets from top class chefs such as Aldo Zilli, Giancarlo Caldesi, Gennaro Contaldo, as well as Festa founder Maurizio Cecco who owns Salvi’s restaurant and deli (both pictured below from Festa Italia 2019.)
Maurizio’s 12-year-old daughter, Sienna Cecco, a talented chef with her own YouTube channel, will be joining the party with live cooking demos. Over lockdown, Sienna provided a series of successful cooking tutorials on Facebook Live, so this will be a chance for families to take part in free kids cooking classes with Sienna in person.
Carmela Sereno Hayes, the hugely popular pastaia (specialist pasta maker) and author, will also be making a welcome return to Festa Italiana by running her inspirational pasta workshops all weekend long.
If you want to buy the ingredients to try making pasta at home, Salvi’s will be setting up a pop-up deli selling the very best authentic Italian produce from start to finish. Joining Salvi’s on the Festival Piazza will be some of Manchester’s finest vendors and restauranteurs setting up stalls offering a range of fantastic Italian street food including pizza, pasta, ice cream and amazing hot sandwiches.
Some of the leading Italian drinks brandswill be on hand with well-stocked bars offering Italian wine, Prosecco, aperitivo, beer and cocktails. Peroni are even planning to bring their portable cinemacomplete with bean bags, deck chairs, popcorn, aperitivo boxes, Peroni on tap and themed classic movie screenings of Italian classics like Cinema Paradiso, Romeo and Juliet and La Dolce Vita.
With much more to be announced for this family friendly Fiesta, look for the updates on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @festaitalianauk and sign up to the newsletter on festaitalianauk.com