What is Let’s Eat Glasgow?
Scotland’s first restaurant festival and pop-up market, Let’s Eat Glasgow! is expected to be a colourful celebration of great food, bringing the very best food and drink from Glasgow and across the west of Scotland into the heart of the city.
The free-to-enter fiesta, taking place at SWG3 this weekend, is the first event staged by the new Real Food, Real Folk co-operative which brings together top Glasgow restaurants: Cail Bruich, The Crabshakk, The Gannet, Guy’s, Mother India, Ox and Finch, Stravaigin and the Ubiquitous Chip.
The chefs at Real Food, Real Folk have founded the not-for-profit co-operative to promote Glasgow’s diverse food scene as one to rival the likes of New York, Tokyo, Barcelona and London and to help raise debate about, and help tackle, the poor nutrition and food awareness prevalent across some areas of the city.
Picture: Let's Eat Glasgow
As well as coming together to serve food for a fiver under one roof at SWG3, members of Real Food, Real Folk have assembled a fantastic array of food and drink producers from across the west of Scotland and will showcase some of the city’s most innovative social enterprises who are raising nutrition awareness across Glasgow.
Jacqueline O’Donnell, chef/patron of The Sisters restaurants, and actors Alex Norton and Gavin Mitchell, will be amongst the guest chefs and amateur cooks taking part in the lively and inspirational demonstration programme.
Live music will play throughout the weekend with a set by Glasgow ska band The Partick Monkeys getting everyone jumping for the 6pm–8pm slot on Saturday when the restaurants will stay open serving their food for a fiver.
Any funds raised through Let’s Eat Glasgow! will go into the Real Food, Real Folk co-operative’s community outreach programme which currently includes work with Spirit Aid, an initiative teaching schoolchildren how to cook at an afterschool club in the city.
Where will Let’s Eat Glasgow! be held?
SWG3, 100 Eastvale Place, Finnieston, Glasgow G3 8QG
When?
Saturday 5th & Sunday 6th September
Sessions:
• Saturday 11am-6pm – Enjoy the restaurants, market, demonstrations and live music
• Saturday 6pm-8pm – Relax into the evening as the restaurants stay open and the live music steps up a beat
• Sunday 11am-5pm – Enjoy the restaurants, market, demonstrations and live entertainment
Getting there
By train/walking:
SWG3 is just 10 minutes walk from Kelvinhall and Partick subway stations and 15 minutes walk from Finnieston station. To reach SWG3, walk along Argyle Street an turn right down Kelvinhaugh Street.
SWG3 is also 10 minutes' drive from Glasgow Central Station (and 15 minutes' drive from Glasgow Airport).
By car:
A number of parking bays can be found on the streets around SWG3.
Please note that there will be no parking available on Eastvale Place for the festival's duration.
Tickets:
Entry to Let’s Eat Glasgow! is free.
The eight Real Food, Real Folk restaurants taking part - Cail Bruich, The Crabshakk, The Gannet, Guys, Mother India, Ox and Finch, Stravaigin and the Ubiquitous Chip – will be serving food for £5.
Food vouchers available during the weekend. Cash only.
What Scottish food and drink can you get your hands on?
Each of the eight Real Food, Real Folk restaurants will be serving the following mouth-watering plates for a fiver:
Cail Bruich
• Loch Loch Duart smoked salmon, avocado, cucumber, dill, horseradish
• Ox cheek cooked in hay, celeriac, shallot, watercress
• Katy Rodgers crowdie, elderberry, meadowsweet
Crabshakk
• Crabshakk crab cake
• Baked crab tart
• Spicy 'Singapore [North Uist] Style' pincer end crabclawmeat and sticky riceball
The Gannet
• Scotch egg
• Cold-smoked scallop
• Dark chocolate delice
Guy’s
• Minced lamb, tabouleh, spicy onion salad, garlic sauce & pickles in a flatbread.
• Trio of mini Scottish pies, beef steak, haggis & clapshot and smoked haddock with chives and cheddar.
Mother India
• Vegetable rice and a light lentil curry
• Potato and spinach dosa, coconut chutney
• Bhel puri with coconut salmon
Ox and Finch
• Confit lamb shoulder, rose harissa, preserved lemon and baba ganoush
• Roast pork belly, shredded thai salad, peanuts and prik nahm pla
• Smoked mackerel pate, radish, fennel and pink grapefruit
Stravaigin
• Roast ox tongue, tunato, pickled shallot, smokey bacon crisps
• Venison and pork gyros, tzatziki, Lochlibo Greek salad
• Highland cattle tail (fried dough coated in cinnamon sugar, spread with fudge and sprinkled with tablet)
The Ubiquitious Chip
• Roast Renfrewshire wood pigeon, Argyll forest mushroom barley risotto and Soused chantrelles
• Monkfish and scallop carpaccio, consommé Verde, Lochlibo shrubbery
• A celebration of west coast meat. Air dried, cured, smoked and salted meats. Pickled Ayrshire chioggia beets, Lochlibo baby cucumbers, smoked mayonnaise and sourdough
Pop-up market
The fabulous flavours and aromas will continue across the pop-up market and add another exciting strand to this stand out food and drink festival.
Visitors are promised a gastronomic tour of the west of Scotland with savoury produce including everything from wild Scottish venison, rare breed pork and bacon from Tamworth pigs, lamb from Badgerface sheep, kiln roasted salmon, oak whisky cask cured smoked fish, oysters, baby vegetables, fruit, crusty sourdough loaves and artisan cheeses.
Treats for the sweet toothed will include goodies infused with locally foraged flowers and herbs, gourmet popcorn and heavenly chocolate.
Drinks include deep and flavoursome coffees, craft beers, whisky, gins and handpicked wines.
Pop-up market producers
• Meat & Poultry Clash Farm Pedigree Saddlebacks, Stranraer
• Great Glen Charcuterie, Highlands
• Hugh Grierson Organic, Perth
• Nethergate Larder, Dunlop, East Ayrshire
• Peelham Farm, Berwickshire
• Braehead Foods, Kilmarnock
• Fish Argyll Smokery, Dunoon, Argyll
• The Caledonian Oyster Company, Oban
• Ritchies of Rothesay, Isle of Bute
• John Valance, Glasgow
• Vegetables Caldwell’s Ayrshire Kitchen Garden, Girvan, Ayrshire
• Bakery Differentbreid, Glasgow
• Little Sourdough Bakery, Glasgow
• The Freedom Bakery, Glasgow
• Cheese Dunlop Dairy, East Ayrshire
• George Mewes Cheese, Glasgow
• Condiments & Preserves Summer Harvest Oils with Simplyaddchilli, Perthshire
• Confectionery Poporopo Amaizing Popcorn, Stirling
• Sugar Wings - Stacy Hannah, Glasgow
• Wee Fudge Company, Glasgow
• Ice Creams Lime Tree Larder, Kilbirnie, Ayrshire
• Thorntonhall Farmhouse Ice Cream, Glasgow
• Speciality Foods Aye Love Real Food, Ayrshire
• Petrie Fine Foods, Kilmarnock, Ayrshire
• Speciality Coffee Avenue Coffee Roasting Company, Glasgow
• Dear Green Coffee Roasters, Glasgow
• Alcholic Drinks Jaw Brew, Glasgow
• Judith Hardy Wines, Glasgow
• Strathearn Distillery, Perth
• Makar Glasgow Gin
• Glengoyne Distillery
Let’s Eat Glasgow! will also showcase some of the great, innovative social enterprises working to improve nutrition awareness and good eating across the city.
They include Locavore, which promotes sustainable food systems; The Milk Café, which offers employability support for ethnic minority women; Moogety Grub Hub, which tackles food poverty in Govan; and The Freedom Bakery, which provides current inmates at HMP Low Moss with on the job training.
Plan Bee from Motherwell, which helps communities and companies adopt a hive and make a natural positive impact on their local environment will also be at Let’s Eat Glasgow! as will the Glasgow and Ayrshire Slow Food movement which promotes true enjoyment of good food, a slower pace of life and food production systems that provide good, clean and fair food for everyone.
Demonstration Theatre
It’s going to be an entertaining and inspirational culinary double act as Jacqueline O’Donnell, chef/patron and big sis of The Sisters restaurants in Kelvingrove and Jordanhill in Glasgow, joins Stevie Fish aka Steve Walker of Fish Brothers for the first of our Let’s Eat Glasgow! cooking shows at 12:30pm on Saturday.
Together, Jak and Stevie will be chatting about, and celebrating, seafood right through from sourcing, selecting and filleting to cooking with style.
Check out Let’s Eat Glasgow! Facebook page to hear which other guest chefs, fishmongers and butchers will be taking part in the festival.
Music
Step up a beat between 6-8pm on Saturday 5th September as Let’s Eat Glasgow! jumps to the sounds of Glasgow ska band the Partick Monkeys and the restaurants stay open serving food for a fiver.
We've also got some great bands lined up throughout the weekend. Join us from 11am on Saturday or Sunday and catch:
• Iain Morrison & Daibhidh Martin;
• Gav Prentice (Ultras);
• Cairn String Quartet;
• Ross Clark (Three Blind Wolves);
• Louis Abbot (Admiral Fallow);
• The Great Albatross;
• Adam Stafford;
• Dave Fraser and The Slave Labourers;
• and Tom Reilly.
Social media
You can find out all about the festival by following the social media pages:
Twitter: @LetsEatGlasgow
Facebook: www.facebook.com/LetsEatGlasgow
Website: www.letseatglasgow.co.uk
