An extravaganza of food, drink and entertainment will put the focus on Hull’s international heritage with a collection of delights from around the world all presented by local businesses.

The Yum! Festival of Food and Drink will take over the city centre next month and bring together businesses from across the region who produce, prepare and serve the finest food and drink.

But with the theme of “Stay local – taste the world” the festival will in particular showcase the diversity of dishes available locally. Yum will also extend its appeal into the evening until 9pm with the introduction of themed nights in the festival marquee featuring international cooking demonstrations backed by live entertainment. Entry is free to all the events.

The opening night on Thursday 7 August will showcase the Best of British, presented by Thieving Harry’s café bar and including live music from the Hillbilly Troupe. On Friday 8 August Stanley’s Brasserie will deliver the Taste of the USA programme, with the sounds of New Orleans from Jazz P’zazz. Tapasya Indian restaurant will take centre stage on the evening of Saturday 9 August with demonstrations by celebrity chef KK Anand and authentic Indian entertainment by Gvants.

All three establishments will also be selling their wares during the day as international influences extend to Africa, Malaysia, Japan and – rather closer to home – the Netherlands in the shape of the Go Dutch Pancake House.

James Stockdale, co-owners of Stanley’s Brasserie, said: “Our Taste of the USA event will promote our new grill night which we have introduced every Wednesday so there will be such delights as pulled pork, ribs and six-hour cooked brisket, and we’ll be demonstrating how people can cook those dishes at home.

“We’ll also have a stall over the three days and will showcase some of our pies and chutneys, with the unveiling of our latest speciality pork pie.”

Simon Wright, Manager of Go Dutch Pancake House, added: “The Yum Festival is a fantastic idea and a great opportunity for us to show that there’s rather more to pancakes than lemon juice and sugar.

“We’re still deciding on our plans for our stall but it will reflect what we do in the restaurant, with all sorts of sweet and savoury dishes.”

Mukesh Tirkoti, Director of Tapasya Indian restaurant, said: “We opened Tapasya as an Indian fine-dining restaurant because we are committed to the best food and drink, and we see the Yum Festival as very important in promoting local food retailers and restaurants.

“We took a stall last year just before we opened Tapasya and we are delighted to be more involved this year. Our dishes have proved very popular and it will be fun to show people how to prepare some of the dishes that we serve.”

Kathryn Shillito, HullBID City Centre Manager, said: “As one of Hull’s major festivals we wanted to make sure this year’s Yum programme starts building towards the City of Culture year, in which food and our international heritage will play a significant part.
The sharper focus on evening activity is all about enabling people to enjoy the Festival after work and wind down with good food and drink and a great variety of free entertainment, but there will also be a packed programme of fantastic foodie fun during the day.”

For full details of the Yum! Festival of Food and Drink visit the website at www.yumfestival.co.uk and Twitter @YumFoodFest

Pictures show Nick Wright, owner of Go Dutch Pancake House, with Kathryn Shillito.