CityLife

Neil Sowerby looks back on the CityLife.co.uk Manchester Food and Drink Festival

Tipi or not tipi? That is the burning question 1 / 3 images

GNAWING on bone marrow in a tipi lit by flickering candles and a log fire. Is this the way it’s going to be from now on in these straitened times?

When famous chefs in the semi-darkness morph into your old scoutmaster you wonder if you will ever have two sticks (or pennies) to rub together again.  

It somehow felt symbolic that the CityLife.co.uk Manchester Food and Drink Festival set up camp, literally, in the shadow of the Royal Bank of Scotland HQ, while the phrase an ill wind seems particularly suited to high rise Spinningfields’ cold canyons.  

The weather was often a curse during the 10 days of a festival centred on a series of marquees and tipis set up on grass in October, but there were gastronomic consolations aplenty.

The aforementioned roast marrow is the signature dish of Fergus Henderson, a regular festival fave celebrated for his promotion of ‘nose to tail’ eating at his London Smithfield restaurant, St John’s.

Two years ago I asked him what body part he would draw the line at for cooking and he told me: ‘‘The sphincter, dear boy, definitely the sphincter.’’

Court of King Fergus

An offaly mad crowd made merry at the cosy court of King Fergus in the Taste Tipi. The marrow came with a parsley and onion sauce and was part of a hearty four-courser prepared on Fergus’s behalf by Robert Owen Brown of the Angel.

These two are among the twinkliest and most talented of chefs around and some sublime wine helped make it my favourite festival event. We could hear rowdier wassailing in the less atmospheric Taste Marquee (think garden centre annexe).

The cask ale faithful didn’t care. They thronged the first day of the CAMRA-run Greater Manchester Beer Festival, where 18 fabulous ales were on tap. Fergus and I had earlier helped judge the best beer in Greater Manchester, from a selection submitted by our exceptional local breweries.

The deserved winner was Pictish Alchemists Ale from Rochdale and it really was pure gold.

Consistently thronged

Cask beer is suddenly a very cultish accessory and the festival-long bar at the Taste Tipi run by Marble, Knott Bar and The Crescent Salford was the most consistently thronged facility.

But outside lunch hours, early evenings and weekends the festival site was often eerily quiet. Tumbleweed blew around the chefs’ demo tent after several cancellations.

The real heroes were the jolly folk at fellow sponsors the Co-op’s Good with Food roadshow in a very exposed spot.

Perhaps it was a lack of public perception of the still developing Spinningfields area that not even some big signposts on Deansgate could rectify.

Some folk thought the St Ann’s Square food market with hog roasts and a lot of sizzling sausages was the main festival, while many would automatically seek Albert Square for any festival fun.

It will obviously take time to bed in (as happened even with the German Markets, though it’s hard to believe). The festival brochure could be published a little earlier next year, too.

Vibrant resurgent year

Ironically, 2007/8 has been a vibrant, resurgent year in the region’s food scene. This is celebrated in tonight’s Awards Gala Dinner at that splendid Victorian gothic pile, The Palace Hotel.

It was difficult to pick one outright winner in some hard-fought categories. Discover their names on CityLife.co.uk tonight or in tomorrow’s MEN.

Much of this resurgence was reflected further afield in festival outposts across Greater Manchester, where ‘making an effort’ was an object of borough pride.

Bars, restaurants, events, offers – we were able to point up them all in our new CityLife.co.uk website.

Wine with food matching meals were excellent value (I loved one such lunch at Grado). Cocktails cast their sophisticated spell in the Taste Tipi with Jamie Stephenson attempting to shake up a world record 400 different cocktails in a session from the mixologist’s bible and The Modern where their cocktail guru Matt Lake led an esoteric vintage cocktail tutorial going back to the Elizabethan Age!

Cradling a pinot noir

Best Wine Event was undoubtedly the Hanging Ditch Merchants’ tasting on the first evening, despite tent heating issues. I remember particularly cradling a particularly gorgeous pinot noir in my armpit to get it to room temperature!

Best Whisky Event was the Ireland v Scotland shoot-out – or should that be shot out? I wasn’t there but gathered from my semi-coherent correspondent it was a generous-spirited event.

Real Hero of the Festival? Has to be Michael Riemenschneider, the new chef at Juniper, Altrincham. After cooking for 100 plus at the In The City gala dinner on the opening Saturday he stepped in to do a demo the next day after a spate of chef cancellations.

Hunting or fishing

The giant Swiss also got into the spirit of the charity Chef Auction at the Great John Street beyond the call of duty when he and Hilton Podium’s David Gale bought the services of Owen Brown – not just to cook for them at home but to be taken hunting or fishing, too.

Great John Street was the scene of Neil’s Crazy Moment (there’s usually one every festival) – being left holding the baby! My website food colleague, Mary Ellen McTague, once worked for Heston Blumenthal at his Fat Duck in Bray.  

French foodie godfather Michel Roux’s own Michelin three star is in the same Berkshire village. So why not ask her to interview before he hosted last Wednesday’s dinner in the Taste Tipi, cooked by the Brasserie Chez Gerrard brigade?

It was brilliant event after an initial blip when The Courteeners’ Not 19 Forever blasted out while he was signing copies of his new book, Pastry. Not sure if 66-year-old Michel is a fan.

Gallic charm personified

After that, in the Q and A, he was indiscreet Gallic charm personified. It had been the same in the hotel interviews.

Only problem was the non-appearance of new mum Mary Ellen’s child-minding mate, so I spent a gurgly half hour occupying three-month-old Joseph.

‘‘Neil, you have handled it beautifully… I will be much easier,’’ said the suave Monsieur Roux.

The MFDF is no longer in its infancy. Last year it celebrated 10 years of expansion. Perhaps it has expanded in to too baggy a beast and might be better crammed into four hectic, celebrity-driven days on an appropriate site.

Great messages

This year’s event sent out some great messages (approved by us at CityLife, the headline sponsors) – Fairtrade, local producers, healthy eating (via the festival’s new Grassroots Foundation) and sustainable grow your own.

The veg at tonight’s black-tie dinner will come from within only a few miles of the Palace Hotel. I was surprised not to see bankers in the sessions gettinga few tips on how to seed their own red cabbage or prune a raspberry bush.

Perhaps they were in the beer tent drowning their gold-plated sorrows in Alchemists Ale.