Honiton's Gate to Plate event, celebrating East Devon’s finest food and craft producers, returns
Honiton’s Gate to Plate event is making a welcome return to the town on Saturday 10 August.
Featuring around 50 fine food, drink and craft producers, there will also be cookery demonstrations by some of the area's top chefs and food experts who will be presenting their work in an on-street show kitchen.
The free event will continue the town’s wonderful and long established market tradition, which dates back to the 13th Century when Honiton was granted a Royal Charter to hold a market.
Organised by East Devon District Council and supported by Honiton Town Council, it’s the second Gate to Plate to be held in the town following the success of last year’s show where more than 6,000 visitors – including HRH The Prince of Wales and HRH The Duchess of Cornwall - packed the high street sampling locally made delicacies.
This year, there’s a great variety of different food, drink and crafters who will line the high street, as they did 12 months ago, offering visitors to come see, come try and come buy. Many of the producers will be offering free samples to visitors to taste their wares.
Alongside the producers, for the first time, there will be a show kitchen with cooking demonstrations from top chefs and food experts which will be compered by the River Cottage’s very own Steven Lamb, who teaches at the River Cottage Cookery School and specialises in curing and smoking meat.
The show kitchen line-up includes local company LittlePod which specialises in high quality vanilla products and they take the first kitchen demo slot at 10.30am. They are followed at 11.30am by Paul Greenhead, an AA rosette winner who, with Beth Cowley have reopened the much loved Railway restaurant in Honiton.
At 12.30pm, it’s the turn of the chefs of The Pig at Combe who will be doing a demonstration that celebrates the seasons, using only the best, freshest and most authentic produce and ingredients. What they cannot grow in their walled kitchen gardens is sourced from within a 25-mile radius. At 1.30pm, Angus McCaig of the Holt pub and restaurant in Honiton will cover the methodology of smoking and curing, while showcasing local ingredients, including organic grade mushrooms from Forest Fungi.
Producers confirmed at the event include Bar Nova Ltd; Boveys Down Farm; Branscombe Brewery Ltd; Chloe Morter Design; Choco-la-de-dah; CN Drinks Ltd (Norcotts Cider); Coldharbour Farm Shop; County Cakes; Daddy D's Kitchen; Dalwood Vineyard; Devon Dogs; Devon Fishcakes; Devon Flower Faeries; Devon Orchard Ltd.
Flapjackery; Frandie Macaron; Freda's Peanut Butter; Good Game Charcuterie; Good Game Hot Food; Heron Ventures Ltd; Hillview Floristry Ltd; Holly Botanic; Honiton Chocolate Company; Honiton Country Market; Howling Wolf Coffee; India in a Jar; In My Back Yard; Otter Brewery Ltd; Otter Vale.
Pizza Buona; Powderkeg Brewery; Random Cottage Foods; Riverford Organic; Stanbury Game Dealers; Surf'N'Turf; The Culmstock Chilli Co; The Little Blue Horsebox; The Little Grub Hub; The Little Tavern; Thimblestitch and Venton's Devon Cyder.
There will also be charity stalls from Allhallows Museum, Honiton; Devon Freewheelers; Force Cancer; Honiton Dementia Action Alliance and the Thelma Hulbert Gallery.
The event opens from 10am to 4pm.
Cllr Ben Ingham, Leader of East Devon District Council, said: “The wonderful response we received from both the public and traders for last year’s inaugural Gate to Plate and the numerous requests from stallholders to hold a repeat event in 2019 left us in no doubt that we needed to organise another celebration!
“We are so fortunate to have so many fantastic food producers, artisans, first class chefs and food experts in our district and county. Having them all in one place, on one day is going to be a superb experience for visitors.”
You can find out more about this year’s event by following a dedicated facebook page which can be found at https://www.facebook.com/HonitonGatetoPlate/ Follow us on twitter @eastdevon #honitongatetoplate
You can also contact us on 01404 41719.
