Twenty Nights of Global Feasting at Stratford

Just in time for the Olympics, you can sample a Global Feast for 21 nights. Find out how you can have an Olympic dining experience without having to buy a ticket for the Games themselves.

Photography & blog post for Great British Chefs by Chris Osburn

Here’s one for the ‘Just in time for the Olympics’ file. 

Only a couple of minutes walk from Stratford Station, Westfield and the Olympic Park is Stratford’s Old Town Hall. But the building could be a world away if you didn’t know any better. And for a glimpse of pre-Olympic grandeur Stratford, a stroll through ye olde Stratford Centre offers an almost retro take on life in East London before the 2012 hoopla. 

 

Still, just as global in reach as the big show next door and taking place at the Old Town Hall is Global Feast. A twenty nights foodie fandango featuring a different cuisine each night prepped by cooks, both local and “shipped” in from other countries. As the Global Feast press release puts it, these nights promise an “Olympic dining experience where guests take their places at an incredible bespoke, geographically-accurate world map of a table”. By incredible bespoke table, the release is referring to a 15 metres long, six metres wide and over two metres tall installation carved pout as a map of the world and merely doubling as a table.

This supper club conglomerate of yum will yield a who’s who slice of London cookery. Organised by Alex Haw (Latitudinal Cuisine) and curated by Kerstin Rodgers (The Underground Restaurant), the nearly three week’s of banqueting will put big name chefs such as Anna Hansen (The Modern Pantry) and Martin Morales (Ceviche) and supper clubbers from all over the planet to the test to represent home cooking and regional cuisine from their respective necks of the woods.

The first of the feasts is tonight 25th July 2012 and has a West African theme. Guest chef Chris Massamba from Full House Supper Club and Sundia Food will be creating a (get this) West African raw vegan feast for the occasion.

Nibbling my way through last night’s press preview I was informed there are still a good number of tickets available – and that booking ahead for any of the dates is advisable. Everything I nibbled was delish as well.

I especially liked the the key lime pie I sampled (for the American evening) and scarfed more than my fair share of soy hard boiled eggs (for the Chinese/Korean night).

A particularly notable evening in the calendar includes the British themed night on Friday 27 July. Coinciding with the Olympics Opening Ceremony, the evening will see Kerstin Rodgers, Denise Baker-Mclean of Moel Faban Secret Supper Club (the only North Wales supper club) and Scottish cook Aoife Behan of Jelly+Gin coming up with the best of Brit menu. 

The last night of the feasting on the 13th of August will highlight Brazilian recipes as a “symbolic handover to the 2016 Games”.

Find out lots more at globalfeast2012.com.

Photography & blog post for Great British Chefs by Chris Osburn