The Manchester Food and Drink Festival is giving over all of their online platforms to create a portal to promote the local hospitality industry during the COVID-19 crisis. The MFDF website and social media channels, plus a new MFDFTV You Tube channel will be the city’s virtual food festival until the real thing, which the team hope to stage in the Autumn. The 2020 Festival dates have been announced as 24th September - 5th October.
The industry has so far delivered an inspiring show of adaptability, support and altruism with restaurants and bars doing everything from completely contactless meal delivery to feeding NHS heroes for free. MFDF will bring the city’s food and drink industry together to showcase all these amazing initiatives, to support local and independent businesses and to provide a hub of activity for foodies at home.
This includes a dedicated MFDFTV Channel on You Tube - where the city’s dining community are providing recipe videos and tutorials, and even virtual wine tastings allowing foodies to learn from the very best while they’re staying at home.
MFDFTV is now live HERE… and is already loaded up with ‘at home’ recipe ideas from some of the city’s favourite foodies covering hot seasonal food topics like ice cream making, ‘fake away’ nights in and perfect homemade pasta. This includes:
Claire Kelsey - Ginger’s Comfort Emporium: How to make Salted Caramel Peanut Butter Vegan Ice Cream.
Simon Wood - WOOD Manchester: How to make Salt & Pepper Chips
Maurizio & Sienna Cecco - Salvi’s: How to makePasta Fagioli
More recipes will be added regularly from tonnes of local food legends like David Fox from Tampopo, Terry Huang from Chish & Fips by Umezushi and Adam Reid, Adam Reid at The French.
MFDF’s first Virtual Wine Tasting will be hosted by Kate Goodman from Reserve Wines. Reserve’s delivery service means that wine lovers can still support independent merchants and enjoy some spectacular wines without leaving their home. Kate is offering up her special Value Mixed Case of wines - a great mix of whites and reds from Kate’s cellars for just £38. A full tutored tasting of the wines included will be available on MFDFTV so wine lovers can enjoy their own personal guided tour around the contents of the box from award-winning TV star, Kate herself!Meanwhile, head to the MFDF website where food and drink news for this extraordinary time will be added, allowing consumers to find a wealth of the latest local food and drink updates in one place. All of this information will also be pushed out via the MFDF social media channels.
MFDF hopes that the 2020 festival will be able to celebrate the city’s incredible food and drink sector in September. The intention is to showcase the city’s exceptional hospitality sector, and to provide a homecoming gastro gig for the food fans of Manchester who will have missed out on a lot of dining and drinking this year.
“The city’s incredible hospitality scene is in the middle of an unprecedented crisis- but the industry is showing itself to be resilient, adaptable and a united front in the face of the current situation. We aim to stage a Festival that celebrates this incredible spirit - starting with our virtual food fest and, we hope, culminating in the real thing in September.”Alexa Stratton-Powell, Director of the Manchester Food and Drink Festival.