Dorset Seafood Festival - Fanatic about Fish?

One of our favourite annual events around Dorset is the Dorset Seafood Festival, taking place this year on the 7th and 8th July! Bringing hundreds of people down to Waterfront Weymouth every year, the festival boasts over 100 stalls and a range of expert and celebrity chefs and foodies!
With 2 large demonstration stages, you get the chance to get up close and personal as the chefs teach the crowds some basic skills for cooking fish and show off their talents at whipping up delicious meals! (If you're close enough to the front you may even be called up to taste!)
As you walk round the festival, the crowds are awash with visitors sampling all sorts of fishy treats ranging from oysters, scallops and 'new and upcoming' delicacies as they chat with local restaurant owners, chefs, and fishermen who really know their stuff about catching, buying and cooking! 

Once again the festival is sponsored by Pommery Champagne who, as we know from past experiences, keep the crowds hydrated with iced buckets of scrummy champagne. (Let me tell you now, a chilled glass of fizz beside Weymouth Harbour is something you NEED to experience!)

Celebrity chefs in attendance this year include Dorset’s very own Ashley Palmer Watts (Heston Blumenthal’s No 2) plus River Cottage contributors, Tim Maddams and John Wright,  Lesley Waters, Mat Follas, Richard Bertinet and Russell Brown. They will all bring their own unique skills and interests to the demo stages and teach the basics (filleting, gutting etc). 
For those less able in the kitchen, there is also champagne pouring demonstrations and expert wine tasting (yes, there will be samples!) to help all visitors become the perfect hosts at functions, dinner parties and more! 


This year the event will open with the Weird Fish Cross Harbour Challenge at 10:30am on the Saturday, judged by Sarah Ayton OBE, double Olympic sailing gold medalist, that sees swimmers race accross the cold waters of the harbour to be the first to down an oyster and a class of Pommery Champagne! 

For the younger ones, restaurateur Mark Hix will be judging The Dorset Young Seafood MasterChef of the Year Competition and for the cookbook collectors there will be book signings from famous chef authors - there really is something for everyone! So, if you fancy going along, just get down to Waterfront Weymouth on the 7th/8th July! See you there! More information available on the Website, Facebook and Twitter.