Southsea Food Festival to return this summer covering biggest area yet

The Southsea Food Festival will take place on Saturday, July 16 and Sunday, July 17 packed with more than 40 stalls offering goods from top food and drink producers in the area.

This year the 2022 festival will occupy a bigger area covering Palmerston, Clarendon and Osborne roads and Avenue De Caen with some road closures in place to give more space for businesses at Palmerston Road.

Foodies will be able to browse, sample and buy a range of products including sausages and bacon, pies, afternoon tea, chocolate, cheeses and Portsmouth gin.

Businesses in attendance include The Monarch cocktail bar at Palmerston Road, The Portsmouth Distillery, Sweetcake Southsea, Beaky Blinders – which offer dairy, gluten and soya free baked goods, Koop + Kraft, Kung Fu Pan, who offer Japanese octopus dumplings, Spice Island Chilli, UK Bratwurst Co, Valencia Paella and many more.

Confectionary trader, Yum Yums Sweeties will offer 12 varieties of long cables and retro sweets.

One of the owners of The Portsmouth Distillery, Ditch Oatley, said how ‘important’ it is for their business to be involved.

He said: ‘It's great that it's back finally. We're going to have our gazebo there and we're going to be showcasing our core range of spirits - so our rums and our gins.

‘We've always done it and as a Portsmouth business it's really important to be involved and we want to show support to the people of Portsmouth because at the end of the day when we started this distillery in 2018 it was very much about opening up a distillery for the city.

‘We are first and foremost a rum distillery that also makes a couple of award-winning gins.

‘In May we launched England's very first three-year-old aged rum made from scratch here in Portsmouth.’

Two live music stages will also stage local musical talent, family entertainment and tips from chefs, bakers and industry experts.

Liam Coleman, founder and creator of Spice Island Chilli will offer three different product tasters from low heat to garlic super hot sauce.

He explained: ‘Spice island Chilli will be selling five different flavours of premium quality chilli condiments.

‘There will be three tasters available on the day starting from entry level jalapeno and lime sauce working your way up to ghost pepper and garlic super hot sauce.

‘Southsea Food Festival has been the biggest event in our calendar year in years previous. We're very excited.’

Councillor Steve Pitt, cabinet member for culture, leisure and economic development said: ‘Southsea Food Festival is such a popular and important community event and we are delighted to bring this event back this year. The passion and dedication that so many of Portsmouth's food and drink businesses demonstrate is vital for our local economy. I urge residents and visitors to come along.’

This year's event is sponsored by the Queen's Hotel.

Head of pastry, Chloe Barter, will provide visitors with an afternoon tea box to sample.

She said: ‘We want to give visitors to the Southsea Food Festival a taster of what our afternoon tea is all about and I’m hoping to spend some time on the stand too.’

Southsea Food Festival is free. Go to rediscover.co.uk