Bath Restaurants

After the relatively lukewarm reception the city gave to the second Flavours of the West festival at Milsom Place last weekend (see previous blog), the Bath Coffee Festival – the first of its kind in the UK, as it happens – proved to be a much more upbeat affair, with a small legion of coffee fanatics rolling up to jive with the java even when the weather turned a bit gloomy on Sunday (all credit to the organisers for ensuring that most of the action took place under a marquee).

Stars of the show on the Exhibitor front within the Big White Tent included the exotically attired ladies behind the Turkish coffee stand, the informative staff promoting Taylor’s of Harrogate and the lively Lazy Jose baristas who kept attention levels sufficiently perky with out without a shot of caffeine. On the food front, The Pig awards Gold Stars to Chandos Deli (who handed out generous samples of their legendary chocolate brownies throughout the whole affair), Ooh La La chocolatiers and those tantalising Turkish ladies again (although we bet that too many of their paklavas does not a svelte belly dancer make). On the downside, savoury nibbles were in short supply: as The Pig predicted, the Ginsters pasty van proved to be an overlooked, incongruous addition to proceedings, and the man on the crepe van could have done much, much better when it came to the overall quality of ingredients. The Green Park Brasserie, however, kept the local food flag flying admirably just outside of the main arena, doing a roaring trade in organic burgers (at their best when accompanied by a mug of perfect Pimms) while salsa dancers strutted their stuff nearby and rugby players did whatever clever stuff rugby players do on the big field. If all goes to plan for a second coffee-inspired shebang next year, might we suggest that a few more of our favourite local delis/cafes join the party?

Demo wise, The Pig believes there was only one winner. Despite strong competition from the aforementioned Taylor’s of Harrogate ‘blending’ masterclass and a nice bit of sideways thinking courtesy of coffee artist Derek Stansfield (yes, he really does use coffee as a medium!), Martin (‘Iron Chef’) Blunos stole the show in his own inimitable way, leading The Pig to hoof up to him afterwards and shower him with affection (and this took place before we hit the Frangelico/King’s Ginger liqueur stands to make full use of the samples being handed out).

All in all, the whole event was a well-considered, welcome addition to the Bath festival scene. Will the forthcoming Bath Food and Drink Festival (Victoria Park, July 3-4) meet with a similar endorsement from the prevalent porcine? Bring. It. On…