Celebrity Chefs to Prepare an Ark of Taste Banquet

As part of the Bristol Food Connections festival, taking place from May 1 – 9, four of the UK’s top chefs will cook up a feast to celebrate the Ark of Taste, Slow Food’s catalogue of endangered food products.

Food Connections is a revolutionary food festival, which aims to change how we think and eat, with over 100 events all over the city of Bristol. It aims to help the people of Bristol to connect with good food, now and into the future. For the Slow Food Ark of Taste Banquet, top chefs Tom Hunt, Giorgio Locatelli, Thomasina Miers and Paula McIntyre will create a special menu using ingredients sourced from the Ark of Taste, a global list of heritage foods at risk of extinction.

The dinner will be held on Friday, May 1, in the Orangery – Food Connections’ pop-up event hub on College Green in Bristol. Curated and cooked by Tom Hunt and his team, this one-off event combines a special feast with revelry and storytelling. The chefs have already selected their favourite ingredients from the Ark of Taste and are currently creating dishes for these star ingredients to shine. During the dinner, the chefs will explain why they have chosen these ingredients, and what makes them unique.

Paula McIntyre’s chosen ingredient is dulse seaweed from Northern Ireland. She will serve the dulse with smoked eel caught in the only sustainable eel fishery in the world. Tom Hunt has chosen Robert Buttle’s rare breed pigs and will be cooking them from nose-to-tail on potluck platters of chorizo, chops, pig’s cheek and bacon. Meanwhile, Thomasina Miers will cook up a panoply of Mexican delights with ingredients sourced on her travels.

All profits from the evening will go towards the Slow Food 10,000 Gardens in Africa project. Tickets are priced at £40 and are available here

Slow Food Banquet Menu

Thomasina Miers:

Black beans and La Gringa Dairy queso fresco sopes with pasilla de Oaxaca salsa

Blue corn mini tamal with Chicatanas ants

MSC scallop Aguachile verde with blue corn tortillas

Paula McIntyre

Cider Glazed Eel with Armagh apple and dulse butter, crystallized dulse, apple and soup celery dressing

Tom Hunt

Tamworth from nose to tail: chorizo, porchetta, belly, crackling and a treat*

Wild garlic and lavender sauce

Fermented rhubarb

Severn project spring leaves

Jersey Royal’s new potatoes

Giorgio Locatelli

Bronte pistachio tart

*Each table will receive a different nose to tail treat

Trotters, stuffed with snout and morels

Guanciale Italian style cured pig’s cheek

Pig’s ears, deep fried, caper salt

Brain, deep fried

Liver pate, truffle honey, bacon

Kidney’s, Ivy house cream, angel hair chillies

Blood pudding, long pepper, deep fried curry leaf

Tail, slow braised