One of the first major dates in the UK foodie calendar in 2015, EAT! IN (Friday 20 February – Sunday 1 March 2015) presents a Medieval Lenten Feast at St Nicholas Cathedral in Newcastle, a new take on Secret Paladares and an immersive Drink Along Movie experience in the lavish world of The Great Gatsby.
Following the success of EAT! OUT festival in Summer 2014, which celebrated the nation’s love of outdoor dining, EAT! NewcastleGateshead is going indoors for its first ever EAT! IN festival.
Taking place from Friday 20 February – Sunday 1 March 2015, EAT! IN begins with an upscaled version of its popular Secret Paladares event. Stepping out from the traditional location of the host’s own home, seven talented home cooks from different ethnic backgrounds will be creating the authentic dishes that they grew up with, at secret community venues revealed shortly before each event.
Inspired by Cuban home restaurants, guests are invited to bring along their favourite dinner plate and join the communal table at Secret Paladares Go Large (Fri 20 – Fri 27 Feb, £18-£23) to enjoy an evening of authentic ethnic home cooking, culture and good company.
Young, up and coming chefs will have an opportunity to shine at the Future Chef, Future City (Fri 20 Feb, £18) event at the brand new Science Central building, The Core. It’s 2040 and the food chain we take for granted today is under threat. Sugar is heavily taxed, many fish species have run out, the price of energy has rocketed and chefs face a different landscape in creating dishes that are affordable, nutritious and appetising.
Enjoy an evening of documentary movies and talks about the future of the our food system by some of the UK’s most enlightened thinkers before sampling and judging the sustainable and futuristic dishes created by the Future Chef finalists. The overall winner of Future Chef 2015 will be chosen by public vote on the night.
Newcastle’s first themed musical supper club joins the EAT! IN festival in 2015. Diners will enjoy Chef Pia Castleton’s four-course menu of locally foraged, organic ingredients whilst Concert Pianist Annie Ball performs works by Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Barber and Saint-Saëns, all in the beautiful surroundings of the Loftus Room at the Lit & Phil. The Semibreve Supper Club – Nature’s Prelude (Thu 26 Feb, £70-£89) will also include a screening of filmmaker Christo Wallers latest work inspired by starling murmurations.
The Lit & Phil will welcome an altogether more raucous evening’s entertainment as EAT! IN celebrates the decadence of 1920’s East Coast America in Drink Along Gatsby Deluxe (Fri 27 & Sat 28 Feb, £50). Part movie screening, part immersive theatre performance, guests are invited to dress up and drink along as they watch Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 film adaptation. When Gatsby’s legendary party gets underway on screen, the whole audience is invited to step into the action for real. Bootleg cocktails, American canapés, a Jazz age soundtrack and dancing the Charleston are all on the menu.
On the final day of the festival (Sun 1 Mar, £25), acclaimed Indian film The Lunchbox gets the Eat-Along Movie treatment. Enjoy food from the film as it appears on screen and surround your senses with the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of Mumbai. The talented chefs at Angeethi, Gateshead will be recreating the dishes as movie-goers enjoy the film. No popcorn required.
Newcastle Wine Fair (Sun 1 Mar, £20-£55), the largest in the North East, invites wine enthusiasts to smell, swirl and importantly sample, more than 70 different wines from the region’s best independent wine merchants. Master of Wine Peter McCombie will be hosting a special masterclass celebrating wines from his home country, New Zealand.
Closing this year’s EAT! IN festival is the Medieval Lenten Feast (Sun 1 Mar, £40) at St Nicholas Cathedral, Newcastle. Taking place on the second Sunday in Lent, a day when normal Lenten traditions are traditionally relaxed, diners will be treated to live Celtic harp music, themed entertainment and a feast featuring sustainable fish, local leeks (marking St David’s Day), artisan breads and North East ales and mead. This candlelit medieval feast takes place in the beautiful nave of England’s most northerly Cathedral.
For more information about EAT! NewcastleGateshead and EAT! IN, please visit www.eatnewcastlegateshead.com. Tickets for all events will go on sale in January 2014. Sign up to the EAT! NewcastleGateshead newsletter (www.eatnewcastlegateshead.com) for the exact on sale date or follow EAT! on Facebook (www.Facebook.com/EATNG) or follow EAT! on Twitter (@EATng) for updates.
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