Keep the October Bank Holiday weekend free for the Savour Kilkenny Food Festival – Ireland's biggest celebration of real Irish food bringing visitors on a fun, fascinating and future-focused journey from farm to fork.
Set against the dramatic backdrop of Kilkenny Castle, the festival centrepiece will be a bustling open-air market on the Parade plaza where visitors can taste and buy the best of local and regional produce while street performers, musicians, and face-painters provide the sights and sounds.
In the heart of the open-air market will be a spectacular food marquee where visitors can experience the journey from farm to fork through a variety of events for all the family from wine tastings, food talks and cookery demonstrations to workshops on apple-pressing, cheese-making and other artisan skills to fun events such as a local celebrity Ready Steady Cookoff.
Savour Kilkenny is about celebrating the whole of Kilkenny’s food heritage and so events will be held in Castlecomer, Thomastown and Callan. The festival will also showcase the newly formed Kilkenny Food Trail which has 38 members throughout the county.
There will be a strong focus in this year’s programme on the next generation of food-lovers with a Young Producers Food market, a Ready Steady Cook challenge, a Young Chefs competition, fun family lunches, quirky cupcake icing, healthy lunchboxes and much more.
The festival will also be liaising with local heritage, arts and crafts organisations to bring a truly creative edge to the event.
A particularly vibrant strand of the festival are the Savour Kilkenny events that take place in cafes, restaurants, hotels and foodshops throughout the county. Last year’s festival included a mediaeval banquet, paella parties, wine tastings, sustainability talks, Thai cooking, pizza making and much more. Full details of what the chefs and retailers of Kilkenny are cooking up for this year will be revealed from the end of August on our website. The programme will include a new feature which will be a world first for Kilkenny!
The event will give people a chance to appreciate Kilkenny's heritage, culture and personality through its food, with something for all the family.
Savour Kilkenny is about celebrating our local food culture, reconnecting with the land and our local heritage, nurturing our environment and getting together over good food! It’s more than a festival, it’s a movement and we hope you’ll join us on our journey.
