Good Food & Wine Show 2013

I’m usually quite involved at the Good Food & Wine Show, last year I did a cooking demo in the Cavendish kitchen and was also one of the judges of the stands at the show. This year I got to enjoy it as a visitor. Checkers and Computicket kindly gave me a ticket to see Gordon Ramsay in action in the Celebrity Chefs Theatre. I arrived early on Saturday morning and took my place in the queue for Gordon Ramsay’s demo. The queue was long and the excitement was palpable.

When you watch a celebrity chef live, it’s like going to a music concert. At a concert, you don’t want the band to just perform 10 songs and leave the stage, you want some interaction, some personalisation. The same with a celebrity chef, if he only makes a meal, you might as well just watch him on TV. Gordon really put on a performance, he was an excellent showman, chatting to and engaging with the crowd for almost half the time (1 hour). Then he still managed to throw together a 3 course meal in 30 minutes!

Here’s a little snippet of Gordon in action:

After the show I queued again to get my book signed (VIP tickets included the cookbook Ultimate Cookery Course), and Gordo was friendly and chatty despite having to sign probably 100 books. So hats off to him, he really did a good job.

I spent the rest of the day walking around and ended up leaving at about 6pm. I tasted many things, I watched a few demos, I chatted to some chefs, I spent time with friends that I bumped into. I also drank some beer and tasted some wines. All in all it was a fun day. That is definitely the way to enjoy the Good Food & Wine Show, with lots of time to walk around and take it all in. If you try and do it in a hurry you will miss a lot and you will become frustrated with the ‘traffic’ as there are a lot of people there and it’s not easy to get somewhere fast.

Below are a few of the photos I took on the day but you can see the rest of them here.

>