Visiting Taste of London 2015 with AEG

Taste of London is a massive annual food festival in which forty of the capital's top restauarants showcase selected dishes from their menus to around fifty-five thousand visitors. Taste of London also includes around two-hundred food and drinks producers, whose products are available to purchase from their stalls throughout the duration of the festival. It's a unique opportunity for foodies to explore London's food scene, tasting restaurants' signiature dishes as well as gathering up essential (and non-essential!) supplies to bring home.

Taste of London 2015 was my first time at the festival and my tickets were very kindly provided to me by AEG. The festival ran for five days and I attended on June 20th - the Saturday daytime slot. I personally found the experience very enjoyable as well as eye-opening, it brought me face-to-face with a luxury industry that I hadn't previously had the opportunity to explore.

Hummingbird Bakery & Propercorn

Set outdoors in Regent's Park, Taste of London is a pretty massive affair. There are countless covered stalls and all the restaurants are set back inside sizeable marquees with their own small counters and kitchens just out of sight. There are always crowd favourites and these particular marquees are busy, humming with activity, but the service is absolutely impeccable, and even seemingly long queues move along swiftly. Cooked food is served piping hot, and every dish I tried looked entirely fresh - there didn't seem to be any cutting corners involved.

 The only real disappointment was the generally sour-faced and uppity attitude of most of the festival's staff. Although they were quick and clearly on-the-ball, smiles were very much off the menu. Manners aside, if you're even remotely "into" food then Taste of London presented quite the spectacle. 

Seggiano & Kurobuta's BBQ Pork Belly in Steamed Buns with Spicy Peanut Soy

Walkways were donned with purple carpet with seating areas scattered here and there, all with their own quirks and individual activities in which to indulge. Throughout each day AEG held guided cooking lessons from notable Chefs as well as live cooking demonstrations from celebrity Chefs, and I also spotted a number of guided wine tastings and even live music. In essence, Taste of London offered the drama of a refined and grown-up festival, and although food is very much the main act there's still a lot going on in the side-lines. During my visit I also noticed a number of pretty incredible competitions and giveaways running, including everything from free dinners at notable restaurants to cooking lessons and luxury kitchen equipment. It was definitely a good venue for anyone with a lucky streak!

Chai Wu's Salt and Pepper Squid and Coconut Prawns & Zaika of Kensington Curry

One of the real benefits of Taste of London is the opportunity to sample dishes from famous London restaurants that you might otherwise never visit. I was particularly impressed with the dishes that I tried from Kurobuta and Chai Wu - just imagine the tastiest asian inspired food that you possibly can, and then believe me when I say that the dishes I tried were even better than that. I'm so enamoured with Chai Wu that I'm considering booking a table there to celebrate my birthday next week, and Harrods isn't my usual playground when it comes to dining out. You have to pay for each of the dishes that you'd like to try when you visit Taste of London, but the prices are all incredibly reasonable for the generous serving sizes. Plus, it's a unique opportunity to pick and mix between some of the best restaurants around, and I certainly found it to be a great deal of fun.

House of Ho & Duck and Waffle's signiature dish 

Marcus Wareing and Tredwells' Soft Serve

Another interesting feature of Taste of London are the visitors themselves. It's a wonderful venue for people-watching and I'm sure it's a magnet for the glitteratzi of the food world. I spotted Marcus Wareinig inside Zaika's marque and then promptly headed over to his own restaurant, Tredwells, for a scoop of the Soft Serve which I'd heard so much about from other Taste of London reviewers. It was an intense sugar hit but still very much much enjoyed, and it seemed to be an incredibly popular choice. I also spotted someone with Duck and Waffle's signiature dish and although I didn't try it myself I did get a snap to share with you. I think it was one of the most expensive dishes on offer at Taste of London but that certainly didn't stop people from stopping by to taste it for themselves.

Lovo & Wine of Fire

The overall experience of Taste of London is quite remarkable - and it was certainly much more enjoyable than I'd expected. It wasn't overly crowded and I never experienced a tedious queue, which I think speaks volumes about the level of planning and organisation that must have gone into the event as a whole. In retrospect, I wish I'd arrived an hour or so earlier so that I had more time to linger and enjoy the atmosphere of the venue. And if you're considering attending Taste of London 2016 then I'd say go for it! It is a family appropriate event and, although there isn't much specifically catered towards children, the venue isn't so busy or loud as to disturb them. 

I'm really grateful to AEG for providing me with tickets to Taste of London 2015. I really appreciated the opportunity and it's definitely sparked within me a greater interest in London's clearly buzzing luxury food scene. There is so much going on everywhere in London and AEG's positioning at the heart of all this activity speaks to the role it enjoys within the industry. Seeing everything brought together into one place was fascinating and I'd definitely recommend the experience. I'd definitely like to return to Taste of London in 2016!

I was provided with tickets to Taste of London free of charge by AEG but this is not a sponsored post and all content is my own.