Review of 'Foodies Food Festival: Tatton Park (2025)'
Every year we debate whether we will go to the Foodies Festival or not. Pretty much every year we decide we WILL go but it is a tight run thing as, for us, the festival changes very little every year with the same vendors on hand, mostly depressingly normal street food and an uninspiring music line-up…Well, we normally skip the music stage (the “Mah Music Stage”) because (a) we are here for the food and drink, not the music, (b) on a nice day, like it was this year, there is no possibility of sitting anywhere near the stage as every inch of the small patch of earth in front of the stage is staked out with picnic blankets (we are in the middle of a massive park but for some reason they always skimp on space here, presumably because it is “wasted” on non-revenue generating people lounging about on blankets), and (c) the really good acts are later in the day (this year Blue played at 6:30 pm) at which time we have already left having spent an exhausting day on our feet at the show…
In any case, we did go this year to our local Foodies Festival at Tatton Park. It was a hot sunny day, and quite dry after a prolonged lack of rain. A primary thing that all food festival attendees are interested in is the freebies. There were a noticeable lack of any significant “freebies” this year with any free items either attached to filling out a questionnaire or so small you could barely count them as a taster. The best freebie this year has to be Bonne Maman who were near the front entrance (and toilets) offering free 230g jars of their “Sweet & Crunchy Peanut Spread” (a trifle sweet for us, but not bad).
We had a look around at the stalls and had no surprises. There were a few slightly interesting food trucks there that we visited including one selling duck products (from, I believe, Duck Frites) and another selling fairly good looking cheesesteak sandwiches (good sized portion too). We were lucky to find a spot at the limited number of picnic tables out of the sun under a marquee in the middle of the foot truck area.
The demos were, as always for us, the highlight of the show for us. There were no huge names here but there were a few former MasterChef chefs (for example, Tom Rhodes) and Great British Bake Off (Hayley Tully from the Professionals) but otherwise unremarkable though the cooking is always interesting to watch and learn something new. As with previous years, there were two main cooking stages beside each other to the left of the entrance: “La Espanola Chefs Theatre” (the La Espanola oil company sponsor was doing a “lucky spin” freebie giveaway which ended up with basically everyone winning a tiny - I mean TINY - plastic bottle of their oil) and “Cake & Bake Theatre”. It was nice to see a local business represented, in this case, Harriet from The Tea Room in nearby Knutsford showing how to make some of their famous cakes - Their Raspberry Bakewell cake.
As always, despite the show suggesting we get tickets for each show we ignore that and no one seemed to use them anyway…if you wanted to visit the “Drinks Theatre” or the “International Cook School”, of course, tickets were required for this. I will say the “Prept Kids Cook School” looked very popular throughout the day.
There was a “BBQ Stage with Lumberjaxe” in the far left of the site which had occasional demos which were very crowded and demonstrated some fairly basic barbecue skills including how to cook a “Tomahawk Steak” (there was one we kept passing throughout the day hanging above the coals which looked, shall we say, SLIGHTLY overcooked…shame…). When not cooking the area was where you could throw axes at a target…
The “goodie bag” we had ordered in advance and picked up on the way out was a bit of a disappointment with a few small Asian snacks and not a lot else. The online festival guide consists of about 40 pages of recipes followed by basic information about the show…
So, roll on 2026 and the decision about whether we will attend then…
Rating: “A bit better than average”
Review Date: 2025-07-13
Tatton Park
Location: Cheshire (England)
Address: Tatton Park Tatton Park, Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 6SG ENGLAND
Telephone: +44 (0) 1625 374400
URL: https://www.tattonpark.org.uk/
In addition to the estate houses of Tatton Park there is a lot of park here to enjoy with a large lake, farm, and parkland to visit. Your parking ticket (currently £8 peak) includes admission to one attraction: The garden, mansion house or farm but the grounds are free to enjoy.
The main house has a small nearby courtyard with a restaurant, toilets and access to the gardens.
The site is a short distance south of Manchester and the M56 near to the small town of Knutsford (easily dwarfed by the estate itself).