Manchester Food and Drink Festival 2022

Manchester Food and Drink Festival 2022, 16–27 September 2022 - Book now

The much-loved Manchester Food and Drink Festival was postponed in 2020 due to you-know-what, and returned in 2021 with a few restrictions but we’ve got every reason to believe 2022 will see a full return for this city-wide festival. Well, we’ve got every digit crossed anyway.

Going off the usual schedule, the full line-up will be announced later in the year, including the dates and any special events. It’s almost certainly going to be held at Cathedral Gardens plus other locations all across the city, promising to bring a much-needed celebration of Manchester’s famous food and drink scene.

Check back here for more details nearer the time, but rest assured, if you’re a food-lover, you can expect an excellent array of events designed to showcase the city’s diverse and resilient hospitality industry.

For a taster of what to expect, here’s what we enjoyed from last year’s festival, which ran across two weekends in September:

Monday 20 September 2021, The Bull & Bear Festival Hub Takeover

Tom Kerridge’s The Bull and Bear took over the Cathedral Gardens Festival Hub for one night only to create their own very special take on street food with a pub grub feast and a live music soundtrack providing an unmatched ‘pub at the hub’ atmosphere.

The three-course supper menu designed especially for MFDF includeed potted Loch Duart salmon with apple jelly and cucumber chutney, braised beef and blue cheese pie with English mustard mash and Seven Brothers ale gravy, and banana custard with dates, pistachio and honeycomb. A vegetarian option was also available. Tickets cost £55 per person which included the three-course menu.

Wednesday 22 September 2021, Manchester’s Biggest Chippy Tea

The city’s best-loved restaurants, chefs, chip shops and food traders came together to create a mammoth chippy tea feast in homage to one of the region’s best-loved meals. The Festival Chippy Tea takeover saw each local hero serving their own take on this classic Northern staple. There was fish, chips, fizz and beers plus vegan fish and chips, and pies too.
This event was free to enter, and walks in were welcome, but a limited number of tables were available for pre-booking.

Thursday 23 September 2021, Schlosstoberfest

It may not have quite been October but Albert’s Schloss got us in the mood with Schlosstoberfest at the Hub, with an Oktoberfest Takeover bringing brats, pretzels and lederhosen. It was free to attend and there was no need to book – Schloss took over the MFDF street kitchen serving up Bavarian street food throughout the evening and programming a lively night of Schloss-style entertainment.

Other happenings at the Festival Hub included

MFDF Street Kitchen Takeovers, 16 –  19 September 2021

MFDF had its own street food kitchen trailer on-site at the Hub which was taken over by some of the city’s best-loved restaurants and chefs over the four days including Evuna, Jackie Kearney and Tast Catala.

The Just Eat Street Food Chalets, 16 – 19 September and 23 – 26 September 2021

The sponsors of MFDF, Just Eat brought some of their top Manchester restaurant partners to the Just Eat Street Food Chalets.

Plus plenty of great live music across the entire length of the festival, a huge number of street food vendors, a wealth of plant-based food producers, plus some amazing bars including the Manchester Beer Bar, celebrated many of the region’s finest brewers of beer and cider.

There was also the MFDF Artisan Food Market. This was open from midday until 7pm and was a free-to-enter fine food and drink shopping experience. This next-level market featured some of the region’s best independent food and drink producers, makers and businesses.

With every promise that 2022’s festival will match and exceed the previous instalment, keep your eye on this page as we prepare to celebrate the return of one of the region’s best food and drink festivals. Mine’s a pina colada.