Ely’s Best Loved Quirky Eel Festival is back!
It will be held from May 4 - May 7 and was officially launched at The Royal Standard Ely.
The city is preparing itself once again for its four day extravaganza to celebrate the origins of the humble eel. organised by the Visit Ely team.
Platinum sponsor, G’s Fresh, represented by Mark Haynes, co-hosted the evening and he spoke of how proud they were to work alongside Visit Ely and sponsor the fantastic two day, food and drink festival, which just gets better and better.
Now in its fifth year, one of main attractions of the festival, which boasts over 75 artisan traders along with an amazing street food scene, is the cookery theatre.
This year sees the celebrity haute cuisine teacher Rosemary Shrager and the original TV chef Brian Turner demonstrating a variety of dishes along with some of our much loved, local chefs.
As well as being able to see them in the cookery theatre there will be the opportunity for a select number of people to join our celebrity chefs in a “In Conversation” style, Q&A session as part of the festival at Oliver Cromwell’s House.
Eel inspired canapés were served at the event which provided a taster of what is to come as the Eel Food Safari will once again be running across the entire weekend.
For the 15th year, Ellie the Eel will take pride of place at the front of the Eel Parade on the Saturday to lead a colourful parade through Ely’s High Street and down to the river where a whole host of eel related activities take place.
In addition to the World Eel Throwing Competition which is always a highlight of Eel Day, Ely is honoured to be chosen to host the British Town Criers’ Championships, thanks to our very own town crier, Avril Hayter.
Tracey Harding, manager of Visit Ely said: “It is hard to believe that this year we are celebrating 15 years of Eel Day and five years of our food and drink festival.
“Being an anniversary year we have lots of new elements lined-up. This is such a great festival for the city and the surrounding area and involves so many businesses and organisations. However, we couldn’t do it without the support of all our sponsors in particular G’s Fresh”.
List of Sponsors:
G’s Fresh (main), Whizzle, Labourtech, Grovemere Holdings, English Spirit Distillery, Lovewell Blake and TLC Inns (Grand Central, Riverside Bar and Kitchen and The Cutter).
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