MANCHESTER Food and Drink Festival has announced plans for its 16th annual Festival which will take over Albert Square and a variety of city centre venues for 12 days from the September 26-October 7, 2013.
Last years event attracted more than 150,000 visitors to the city centre Festival Hub on Albert Square. They drank over 40,000 pints of beer, and ate amongst many other things, over 5,000 ostrich burgers. This year festival organisers have plans to thrash those figures with a range of new events set to run alongside old favourites.
The Hub will be housed in Albert Square as usual, and will be filled with Manchesters biggest Street Food Fair, a Beer Festival serving up over 100 different local beers, Robinsons Pub on the Hub, an artisan food market, The Festival Tiki Shack, The Birdhouse Charity Cake Sale, and a series of Masterclasses providing practical tips from filleting a fish to plucking a pheasant!
Beyond Albert Square the gastro action will continue with the sell-out annual Whisky Festival, the Fifth Big Indie Wine Fest and a brand new Spirit Market event where visitors will be able to sample and purchase a range of boutique spirit brands.
Plus Manchesters restaurants and bars are currently cooking up their programme of events and offers to compliment foodies can expect everything from dinner dances to foraging across the 12 days.
Rounding off the Festival will be the Gala Dinner on Monday, October 7, where 15 awards will be made to the best Manchester restaurants, bars and chefs. The MFDF Awards shortlist is yo be announced soon.
Festival Exec Director Siobhan Hanley says: We are really excited about this years festival, which has been designed to include all the elements that Manchester residents have told us that they love, along with the addition of some new, exciting activity that weve never done before more details soon to be announced.
This year we will also be using the profile of the Festival to work alongside local charities and agencies to explore the issue of Food Poverty in our region, looking at how local people and businesses can start to help tackle this problem.
Information about all events can be found at http://foodanddrinkfestival.com and on Twitter by following @mfdf13