CITY’S FIRST INDEPENDENT FOOD FESTIVAL ON A MISSION TO BANISH DODGY BURGERS AND LIMP FRIES WITH TASTY LINEUPS OF LEEDS STREET FOOD TRADERS
Leeds’ first independent festival of food and drink culture, Leeds Indie Food, have set their sights on the music festival circuit. The first Leeds Indie Food Festival (#LIF15), which ran from 7th – 24th May this year, brought together the entire independent sector, with everyone from coffee shops to art galleries getting involved in over 100 events run by over 100 businesses. The festival ploughed nearly £500k into the local economy and saw 15k food fans bought tickets to edible art exhibitions, Ukrainian supper clubs, eat-along film screenings and much besides, with a further 20k visiting participating indie businesses over the fortnight to chow down on creative cooking, speciality coffee, craft beer or artisan charcuterie. Although the festival was a great success, the organisers aren’t content with a two-week celebration each spring. This summer, they’ll be taking some of the city’s best street food traders on tour to give music festival-goers a chance to experience the best the city has to offer.
Matt Dix, founder of Leeds Indie Food:
“Leeds has such a vibrant street food scene – it’s one of the things we do best. With monthly events like Belgrave Feast and Brandon Street Night Market, people have a chance to sample food from all over the world – everything from Polish sausage to Indian chaat – and our street food scene was so popular during #LIF15 that we wanted to spread the word, and shout about awesome traders to a wider audience.”
In July, Leeds Indie Food collaborated with speciality coffee shop Laynes Espresso to cater an exclusive VIP area at Latitude Festival in Suffolk, which went down a storm. Now, they’re excited to reveal two brand new festival food lineups running over the August Bank Holiday weekend: The Garden Party and Leeds Festival.
The Garden Party will take over The Tetley, in the heart of Leeds, for two days of music, food and art on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th August. The Garden Party is celebrating its 10th birthday with headliners including Roisin Murphy, Little Dragon and Talib Kweli. Leeds Indie Food will be on site with a street food feast for partygoers:
Boozy-Q BBQ – proper beery burgers
Pizza Fella – with wood-fired neapolitan pizza
Rola Wala – with twisted Indian wraps
Fish& – with their famous fish and chips
Banh Mi Booth – with fresh Vietnamese sarnies
Northern Bloc – with Yorkshire ice cream
Over at Leeds Festival, Leeds Indie Food are working with organisers Festival Republic to bring the best food in the city out to Bramham Park from Thursday 28th to Sunday 30th August. Alongside guitar gods Metallica and indie superstars The Libertines, the main stage area will also play host to five stellar food trucks as part of #LIFATLEEDS:
Smak! – Flame grilled Polish sausage
Quinoa Caravan – South American superfood
Frizza – Deep fried pizza
Fish& – Presenting a new concept, ChicknChicknBangBang
Chaat Cart – Stars of Trinity Kitchen
Andrew Critchett, Fish&:
“I’ve seen the Leeds street food scene grow from nothing over the last four or five years and it’s great that the city’s traders are getting the recognition they deserve. We’ll be in the mix at Garden Party with our twisted fish and chips and at Leeds Fest rocking out with a brand new menu. Leeds Indie Food Festival last May was a great celebration of what we do, and it’s good to see the team are really promoting and pushing our independent businesses all year round.”
With festival season looking tasty, watch out for more Leeds Indie Food events in the Autumn and over Christmas. The era of boring food markets and dodgy hot dog vans is well and truly over.