Image: Eat!
When you find yourself coming up with mostly dining ideas for out-of-towners, you know your town is a food destination. Thank goodness Vancouver’s 13th annual Eat! Festival is finally living up to our community of talented chefs.
Eat! 2015 takes place April 26-May 3. The new format includes over 35 culinary events. There will be five days of interactive experiences (this is the good stuff) leading up to the three-day B.C. Place floor show. As reported by the Straight, the events include collaborative dinners at Vancouver restaurants, such as one on May 1 that pairs Toronto celebrity chef Lee with Hidekazu Tojo at Tojo’s, and another on May 3 that matches Food Network’s McEwan with Pino Posteraro at Cioppino’s.
There will also be small, hands-on educational workshops with local chefs and food producers such as Oyama Sausage Co.’s John van der Lieck, who’ll be sharing bacon-curing techniques, and Bella Gelateria’s James Coleridge, who’ll take participants behind the scenes at his gelato shop to make “gelatinis”. Our very own Beaucoup Bakery will be doing a a pastry tasting panel with Thomas Haas, Beta5 Chocolates, and Chez Christophe. Another Kits restaurant, Maenam, will be joined by Toronto’s DaiLo restaurant for special collaborative dinner.
According to Alan Fogel, a partner with Fulcrum Events Inc., which owns the EAT!, Vancouver is the right place to develop a destination food festival because the city has “the most dynamic food culture in Canada by far”. He noted that Vancouver stages more food and beverage events on a regular basis than anywhere else in the country. “I just see things going on in Vancouver that quite frankly aren’t being done in Toronto,” he told the Straight.
Vancouver chefs tend to be collaborative. They like to work together on special events and are well connected with their colleagues across the country, many of whom trained or were mentored here. Those chefs are eager to return to Vancouver.
You can browse the full line up and find tickets here. We guarantee you’ll be tempted.
Last modified: April 6, 2015
