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The
London Restaurant Festival is inviting the capital's restaurants to
register for this year's inaugural six-day Festival taking place
during 8 -13 October 2009.
Over
400 of the capital's restaurants have already registered their
interest via the festival website - www.londonrestaurantfestival.com
- and will now be issued with official registration documents and guidelines.
The
Festival has been created by Fay Maschler and Simon Davis, her
business partner in the consultancy A Private View, and is supported
by Visit London and Mayor Boris Johnson.
It
will be a highly publicised, citywide celebration of eating out
which will raise the profile of establishments involved and
acknowledge the pleasure and sustenance given to all by London's
extraordinarily diverse range of restaurants. In these hard times for
restaurants, one of the main aims will be to entice and drive more
customers into restaurants.
The
London Restaurant Festival team have been working with a number of
high profile London restaurants and Chef's to create content and
secure exclusive festival activities for the six-day event.
Ultimately the model for the London Restaurant Festival can best be
compared to the Edinburgh Festival. But where the latter's events are
about the performing arts, the London Restaurant Festival's celebrate
restaurants and food. In year one there will be around a dozen events
happening throughout London, with a plan to have fifty by year three.
Marcus
Wareing, Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley said: "I am proud to
be part of the London restaurant scene. We offer some of the best
cuisine in the world from the most diverse range of restaurants. In
this current climate what a great idea, a celebration of our existing
restaurants and a reminder of how unique London really is. Food is
fun and for six days in October everyone can see just how much!"
A
key 'event' that all London restaurants are invited to take part in
is the Festival Menu programme. Fay Maschler, the distinguished
Evening Standard restaurant critic and London Restaurant Festival
chair, believes that a Festival Menu should encapsulate, explain and
deliver the essence of each participating establishment. Menus at
different fixed price points will give potential customers
confidence; places that they may have been diffident about trying
become understandable and accessible.
Festival
Menus provide the opportunity for restaurants of any ethnicity to
convey precisely what their cuisine contributes and the part it plays
in the astonishing range of restaurants that London possesses. The
menus will be an opportunity to concentrate even more than usual on
creativity, seasonality, surprise and good value.
Jacob
Kenedy, Bocca di Lupo: "I am incredibly excited about the
London Restaurant Festival - it promises a whole new perspective on
the food of our magnificent city. The activities and events are
imaginative, fun and intelligent. The festival may well provide a
forum for restaurateurs to showcase and discuss their offerings, but
will more importantly give customers a great way to get involved in
our thriving foodie scene. We Brits spend more than enough time
bemoaning the worse aspects of cuisine in this country - here at last
is a chance for us to celebrate the highlights instead."
Restaurant
registration documents and more information on the festival's events
are available at www.londonrestaurantfestival.com
or by emailing penny.smith@londonrestaurantfestival.com
The
Festival will open with a high-profile launch party at Quaglino's on
Wednesday 7 October, co-hosted by Vanity Fair magazine. The
culmination will be the London Restaurant Festival Awards in
association with the London Evening Standard on Tuesday 13 October 2009.
Founding
Partners of the London Restaurant Festival include Visit London, A
Private View and Tim Etchells of Single Market Events. Festival
Partners include Vanity Fair, Covent Garden London, Toptable.com,
Eureka Executive Search, Taste and London Evening Standard.
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