St David’s Hosts First Food and Drink Festival

20th August 2010

St David's is set to host its first ever food and drink event in Cardiff to showcase the food offering within the centre.

Chefs from the range of restaurants at St David’s will be demonstrating their culinary flair in an outdoor kitchen as well as offering shoppers the opportunity to taste their signature dishes.

The St David’s ‘Find Fab Food’ celebration will be held on The Hayes on Friday August 27, and Saturday August 28, from 11am until 6pm. Restaurants participating include Café Rouge which will be cooking and sampling crepes and escargot as well as Jamie’s Italian which will demonstrate how to make its famous prawn linguine. The soon to open Dragon’s restaurant will be cooking and tasting Welshcakes while Nando’s will be teaching shoppers how to make the perfect chicken wrap. Meanwhile, The Jolly Dale Cyder Company will be sampling and selling their speciality ciders outside John Lewis. 

Selected restaurants and cafes within Eastside – the restaurant quarter within St David’s – will be running special offers to celebrate the event with a huge variety of restaurants offering tasty food samples and promotions to customers in-centre and on The Hayes throughout the two day event.

St David’s is using the festival to officially launch its contemporary granite chess tables and chess set hire service with the help of Cardiff Chess Club. Visitors can choose to take on members of the chess club in a mini tournament or even choose to receive a free chess lesson. The chess tables, built on The Hayes, were part of St David’s public art programme, and were designed by Welsh artist Bedwyr Williams. From the bank holiday weekend, chess sets will be available for hire from the Customer Information Desk at St David’s for free, subject to a small deposit.

Steven Madeley, centre director for St David’s, said: “Our first food event will be a fun event for the public on the Bank Holiday weekend with our chefs cooking in the outdoor kitchen as well as offering samples and promotions.

“With 18 cafes and restaurants, St David’s is more than just a shopping destination. There is a wide offering of food within St David’s and as Eastside approaches full occupancy, we wanted to give visitors a taste of the different brands and nationalities available. We are hoping to create a festival atmosphere within St David’s and out on The Hayes and provide shoppers with new opportunities within the city centre. We also thought it was the ideal opportunity to launch our chess tables; visitors can watch the professional players in action and then be able to try out the tables for themselves using the free chess set hire service. 

“We are working on a whole calendar of events at St David’s to enhance shoppers’ experiences when visiting us and we hope that the ‘Find Fab Food event’ will become the first of this annual celebration.”

Virginia Dale, of the Jollydale Cider Company, added: “"The whole team at Jollydale Cyder Company are looking forward to participating in the first St David's food and drink event this year. Originating from the East Midlands, it will be great to give the people of Cardiff the chance to sample our four cyder varieties at our stand."

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