Despite being a brand-new concept, Bite Cardiff ended up being the unexpected highlight of the Cardiff food festival calendar last year.
The inaugural event welcomed more than 10,000 people to the gardens of Insole Court mansion in Llandaff, where they could sample dishes cooked by 30 of South Wales’ top chefs and restauranteurs – and to make it accessible to all, every single dish was priced at just £3.
Today, organisers have revealed that Bite will return to Insole Court on the 27th July, and they have plans to make this year’s event even bigger and better.
Once again, the focus will remain squarely on the food – there’ll be no fancy branding, and no trendy food trucks to distract from the provenance and quality of what people are eating, or the skill of the people who cook it.
However, this year’s event will include extra space for up to ten more chefs / producers to join the festival line-up (bringing the total to forty), and provision for two additional bars. The full line up if chefs and producers taking part will be revealed over the coming weeks.
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Festival founder Phill Lewis (who is also co-owner of Dusty Knuckle restaurant in Canton) explained, “The reaction to Bite last year was phenomenal, so we knew we had to bring it back. But this time we’re planning to include more chefs, use more of the space available to us at Insole Court, and really make the most of that amazing backdrop.”
Insole Court Director, Gray Hill, said that last year’s event helped attract a new audience to the mansion and grounds; “Insole Court was reopened to the public back in 2016, but there are still lots of people in the city who are yet to discover us. Bite was our biggest event to date, and we’re delighted to be able to welcome it back this summer, and to share our special place with the people of Cardiff and beyond.”
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As part of the 2019 Bite reboot, organisers have also looked at ways to improve on the sustainability of the event. As a result, reusable Bite-branded, souvenir cups will go on sale later this month for £3 each.
Phill explained, “We want to limit single-use materials at the festival, so this year, we’ll be providing reusable, Bite-branded cups for use at the bars on the day. These can also be taken away as a little souvenir to be used again and again.
We’ll put these up for pre-sale in the next few weeks, which people can collect on the day. Not only will this help us to make the event more sustainable, it will also help us to cover the costs for the extra infrastructure we need to grow Bite, and make it even bigger and better for 2019.”
For more information about BITE, keep an eye on the Facebook page.
