Four days of food is coming to Harewood House this summer.
The Queen's Jubilee weekend is quickly becoming a jam-packed weekend. There's everything from Live at Leeds festival to street parties kicking off the four day weekend- and that's before any of the official royal events have taken place.
Like all good celebrations, us Brits say it best with food: whether's it's a birthday cake or celebratory bottle of something fizzy, there's always a reason or an occasion to toast with full bellies and crumb-covered smiles.
Whilst Leeds doesn't have a single big tent of its own with Mary Berry, the city will be celebrating in Bake Off style with a huge food festival that's inviting foodie from across Yorkshire to celebrate the Jubilee bank holiday weekend in the only way us Brits know how.
Surround yourself with local indie businesses and up-and-coming brands at this four-day foodie extravaganza.
Called the Great British Food Festival, visitors will be able to wade through masses of cooking stalls, menus aplenty and even have a trial run in a Bake Off style tent to see if you have what it takes to follow in the footsteps of the six TV show winners from Yorkshire.
Harewood House will transform into a food-lover's dream over the bank holiday weekend to include an artisan market, street food, walk-up bars
Chefs from local restaurants and pubs will take to the stage across the four days to show you how to recreate their culinary masterpieces in the comfort of your own home, even using everyday materials and ingredients. Sharing shortcuts and tips of the trade, the light-hearted entertainment is for novices and professionals alike: running each hour 11am - 4pm.
Image: Great British Food Festival
If you're more interested in where your food comes from- or rather can come from, foraging walks with one of the UK's only accredited foragers will take place every day in small groups. Guided walks are around the festival site in a small group. The pushchair and wheelchair-friendly events last around 45 minutes to 1hr and start at 10am, 11.15am, 12.30, 2pm and 3.15pm respectively.
If that's not enough to keep the whole family entertained, there will be five kids cookery classes per day to keep the little ones on their toes and allow them to leave with their very own baked goods. Choose from either rocky road truffles or peppermint and orange pebbles and let the chefs take charge of the cooking and most importantly, the cleaning up afterwards.
Serious bakers can take their cakes in for inspection at the Cake Off event, where over 600 cakes have been cut, tasted and deliberated, but only one will be crowned winner. The free-to-enter event encourages all aspiring foodies to enter this exciting competition with yet-to-be-announced prizes.
50% of the score is obtained from our judging panel who will rate the entries on their presentation and taste. The other 50% of the votes will be scored by the general public.
Image: Great British Food Festival
At each Festival we pick members of the crowd to come and sample what is on offer, then they will hand in their scores. Once all scores have been tallied, our independent adjudicator will announce the winner.
Plus, once the judging is over all cake entries are open for anyone to sample, so even if your idea of baking is watching Mary Berry on the telly, you can still make the most of this Bake Off style event without even lifting a whisk.
If you'd prefer competitive eating to nibbling away at cake crumbs, there's Man V Food challenges aplenty here too. Enter the sausage eating contest, where competitors eat as much sausage as they can in six minutes and six seconds; the chilli challenge where contestants eat until they need to reach for their pint of milk (medics will be on hand) and even a couples 'treat challenge' where teams of two take on a mammoth sweet treat with a twist.
To enter the Great British Food Festival, entrants require a pre-booked ticket. Costing from £13.20 for adults and £7.20 for children, all tickets can be booked on the Great British Food Festival website.
Feature Image- Great British Food Festival
Eats
Get Baked’s viral ‘Bertha’ cake has a sister on the way – and she sounds just as cheeky
She's big, she's green and she's ready to ruin your figure.
A lot of you will have seen the viral ‘Bertha’ cake by Leeds born beloved sweet treat specialists Get Baked.
They recently opened another site in Manchester's Northern Quarter, where queues literally formed round the block of hungry punters wanting to get their hands on the infamous sugary treats.
And now it's going to happen all over again, as they've recently unveiled their newest flavour which is sure to go down a storm.
We’ll give you a hint: it’s a current food and drink trend that’s about as big as Bertha herself – it’s not matcha, it’s not hot honey (duh), and it’s not Guinness…
Images: Get Baked
Yes—scratch that; HELL YES!Get Baked is set to welcome Bertha’s equally beautiful twin sister, and she’s officially a pistachio girlie.
Having started out life simply as ‘Bruce’, after taking inspiration from the iconic scene from Matilda, this thing has become a phenomenon in its own right, and who doesn’t like more flavours of a good thing?
Probably one of the biggest foodie crazes going at the minute, thanks to the popularity of pistachio cream, cookies, lattes and the similar social media sensation that is the ‘Dubai Pistachio Bar' people are rather fittingly going nuts for this particular flavour of almost absolutely anything.
With that in mind, the Leeds-born bakery and dessert shop – founded by Rich Myers over in Headingley back in 2011 – have shown no hesitation in hopping on the bandwagon and creating a new twist on their own viral menu item.
Teasing the full details in a post on their Instagram this week, they wrote: “What’s big, green, and is going to destroy your life in a couple of weeks’ time? Pistachio Bertha. Strictly limited to 5,000 slices. Coming oh so soon. GB.”
In case you were wondering just how mad those with a sweet tooth could possibly go for a slice of cake, just look at the recent queues when they finally launched in Manchester city centre:
Speaking on the grand opening here on our turf and his partner Amy’s hometown, Myers said simply: “Manchester, what a launch. Thanks for much for the warm welcome. Stay baked.”
The Swine That Dines announces the official opening date of its brand new restaurant
Clementine Hall
Much-loved Leeds Bistro The Swine Bistro, formerly known as The Swine That Dines, has moved to a bigger space in Headingley.
Although it’s gone through a few name changes over the years since launching as The Greedy Pig cafe in 2012, this independent spot has long been a firm favourite for Leeds locals for some time now.
Run by chef couple Jo and Stu Myers, they’ve been operating out of North Street where it’s all about cooking seasonal produce simply and with an added ‘little bit of sunshine’.
But now Swine Bistro has moved up over to Headingley, taking up a unit previously occupied by Jam hairdressers on Otley Road.
Image: Supplied
And the time has finally come for them to open their doors, as they announce their first service will take place on Friday 4 April with bookings open from today, Thursday 20 March.
The Myers will be welcoming head chef Kirsty Cheetham, who won Observer Food Monthly’s Best Sunday Lunch award in 2018 and 2022 when she ran The Queen o’t owd Thatch in South Milford, Leeds.
The expanded space in the restaurant has allowed the team to curate a bigger wine list which will include natural wines from Wayward Wines and Latitude Wines as well as local beers from Ilkley Brewery and Horsforth Brewery.
Image: Supplied
The team remains passionate about locally sourced ingredients and has partnered with a variety of Yorkshire suppliers including R&J Yorkshire for its fresh meat, Tarbetts fishmonger, cheese from George & Joseph cheesemongers and beans from micro roaster, Chipp Coffee Co.
Jo Myers, co-owner of the Swine Bistro said: “It’s taken a huge amount of time and effort to realise our dream to revamp what was previously a hairdresser into a fully functioning kitchen and restaurant. It’s been a wild ride but we’re excited, and slightly nervous, to finally open our doors.
“We love the vibe in Headingley and the time out has allowed us to have fun with our menu as well as take part in lots of essential taste testing of ingredients and drinks from our brilliant local suppliers. We can’t wait to welcome guests into our new restaurant!”
Sophie Smith -
19th April 2022 
