Taste of London is a mid-sized food festival that takes place each year in London's Regent's Park. It's a chance to taste small tapas sized plates of food served up by Michelin starred chefs, as well as buy artisanal produce. It's a foodie's dream. Stalls are dotted around the park, each with taster plates from dishes each chef serves in their respective restaurants. Le Gavroch (the famous Michelin restaurant started by the culinary royalty that are the Rouxs) were there serving up some of their classics like Pork Belly with Black Pudding and Tomato spiced Jus.
The festival works on the principal that no money exchanges hands. Instead you buy crowns. The value of a single crown is 50p. Dishes vary between 6 and 16 crowns so you need a good amount of crowns to get the most out of the experience. I'd say around 30 per person could work. So effectively each dish averages at around £6. It's not cheap, so it's fair to say that you have to be very food orientated to part with £6 for 4 spoons of food.
We had a variety of things but we didn't go crazy. My husband loved the White Chocolate Pannacotta from Alyn William's restaurant The Westbury. He also liked Alyd's Braised Beef Cheek, which was very rich but tender as hell. We did think the fact they said it lay on a bed of Baked Potato Foam was a little pretentious (it was just mash), however what do you expect when eating dishes from some of the worlds best restaurants?
Other things we enjoyed were the seared Scallops from Theo Randall and the Monkfish Kebab from The Savoy.
The weather was typical. It started off relatively warm and towards the end was a little windy and cold. Nonetheless it's a real experience and a joy if you want to taste food from restaurants you may otherwise not have the chance to go to.
Taste of London
10/10
Regents Park
London
http://london.tastefestivals.com/london/default.aspx
