London Food Festivals Every Foodie Needs To Attend
London is buzzing with different events every single weekend, and festivals make up a large part of this. Food festivals in particular pop up all across the city at all times of year, filled with delicious food and drink as well as live entertainment. From big venues, like the Tower of London, to small side streets in the East End, you can always find a food festival happening somewhere in London. So if you’re a foodie, you definitely need to try these London food festivals to get a taste of the incredible dishes and vibrant atmosphere of the city.
Taste of London
The Taste of London food festival pops up twice a year, in June and November, offering food, drink and live music all in one location. In June you’ll find Taste of London in Regent’s Park, and in November, in the Tobacco Dock Warehouse, located in Tower Hamlets.
The festival serves a huge range of food and drink, including dishes from London’s newest and most popular restaurants, as well as off-menu items created specifically for the festival. Restaurants such as Burger & Lobster, eggslut, Gaucho and Club Mexicana are involved in ToL, so you will always find plenty to choose from.
Taste of London is also home to a number of artisan producers selling goods that you can take away with you. Sellers include Edinburgh Gin, Bumble Wrap, Hippeas and Kuka Coffee. There are also multiple bars, serving craft beer, cider, wine and cocktails, for a drink to accompany your gourmet food. You can even take part in workshops at Taste of London, including a Laurent-Perrier Street Food workshop as well as many other cooking classes and cocktail masterclasses.
Taste of London brands itself as “the ultimate foodie paradise”, so it is definitely a London food festival worth visiting.
Jerk & Beyond
Held at Old Spitalfields Market, Jerk & Beyond is a free food festival celebrating Caribbean food – enjoy delicious food, rum and live music at this venue all May bank holiday weekend. Curated by Sham Mahabir and his own restaurant and bar in the market (which just opened in the past two years), this is one of London’s most vibrant and friendly food festivals. Mahabir’s restaurant Limin’ Bar acts as the festival’s hub, located just across from it.
Jerk & Beyond brings together food from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica and Guyana to bring you some spectacular dishes throughout the festival.
Try the pineapple daiquiri slushies, rum punch and Mai Tais, all made with the award-winning plantation rum, alongside live entertainment. Dancers from Notting Hill Carnival visit Jerk & Beyond, as well as Just Vibez, who are responsible for the event’s soundtrack.
Jerk & Beyond is free to attend, with food and drinks starting from just £6.
Tower of London Food Festival
Street food, pop-up bars, masterclasses, artisan producers and live entertainment – all found in the slightly bizarre location of the Tower of London’s famous moat. Held in the last few days of summer over four days, the Tower of London Festival features a huge list of chefs and experts, holding workshops and serving delicious food that you’ll be able to watch live from the moat.
Vendors at the Tower of London festival feature Bohemian Wrapsody, Mac to the Future, Bread Tree, Love Churros and so many more!
What makes this food festival so special is, of course, its location at this historical landmark. A ticket to the festival also includes free entry into the tower itself, so in between snacks you can visit the Crown Jewels and explore the underground cells.
Gin, Crisps and Dip Festival
This summer, Brixton Jamm is holding its first Gin, Crisps and Dip Festival! What better combination? The venue is teaming up with HipChips – a Soho based chips and dip cafe to bring this festival to London. Upon arrival, every guest will receive a complementary bag of their chips to try, accompanied with a huge range of dips.
HipChips have reimagined how we we make crisps, finding the best heritage potatoes and lightly frying them before choosing between a cinnamon flavouring or a salted savoury coating. They use a range of different potato types, so you’ll be spoiled for choice at this festival. Savoury dips include blue cheese ranch and beetroot lemongrass marmalade, whilst sweet options feature toffee apple and campfire s’mores flavours. HipChips are not your average bag of crisps, and you’ll be able to discover this at Brixton Jamm’s new food festival.
And what better to go alongside these snacks than gin? This festival will offer a wide selection of different gins and mixers, gin cocktails and gin masterclasses to make this the perfect summer event.
Portobello Vegan Sundays
This weekly festival held at Portobello Market serves a wide range of plant-based meals and snacks between noon and 6pm. Plant Based Events Company and Acklam Village have teamed up to bring this event to London and it has been met with great success.
This is a free event, boasting a huge variety of fresh fruit and vegetable traders, artisan stalls and vegan food trucks that fill Portobello Road. Not only that, but Portobello Vegan Sundays also feature live music and entertainment.
London Brunch Fest
Brunch is always a good idea, and the London Brunch Fest certainly knows that. Held at the Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, this food festival takes brunch to a whole new level. With food, coffee, booze and live entertainment this is definitely a festival that you can’t miss.
Some of London’s best brunch menus from different restaurants all come together under one roof for this celebration of breakfast food. You can also enjoy tea, coffee and, of course, Bloody Marys and prosecco! London Brunch Fest is also home to a marketplace of smoothies, juices, pastries and other breakfast items that you can try.
This year, the festival is launching ‘Sweet Street’ – a whole room dedicated to desserts and sweet treats such as brownies, cookies and donuts.
All of this is topped off by a line-up of guest speakers, panel discussions and workshops.
