Festa Italiana food festival to hold two special Manchester banquets with TV chefs

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Two very special Manchester banquets will take place next month at Manchester’s Italian food festival Festa Italiana.

Running from 27-29 August, the free-to-attend festival will bring a host of street food traders and fine Italian produce, as well as a brand new movie screen showing Italian film classics to Manchester’s Cathedral Gardens.

It’s now been revealed the festival will also welcome some of the UK’s top Italian TV chefs to host two ultra-indulgent, ticketed dining events designed to showcase the very best of Italian cooking.

This year’s Festa will incorporate a brand new movie screen showing Italian film classics / Image: Festa Italiana

Taking place on 28 and 29 August, three top Italian TV chefs will be coming down across two evenings to prepare and serve three courses of authentic Italian cuisine from the Festa’s open dining space.

The first banquet, which kicks off at 7.30pm on the Saturday, will be hosted by Gennaro Contaldo (of Saturday Kitchen, Two Greedy Italians, Jamie and Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast fame) and Giancarlo Caldesi (Return to Tuscany, Saturday Kitchen, Sunday Brunch).

These legendary Italian chefs and authors will join Salvi’s owner and festival founder Maurizio Cecco in the kitchen for an evening of live cooking and feasting, talking their guests through the evening’s menu and answering questions as they go.

Gennaro Contaldo, of Saturday Kitchen, Two Greedy Italians, Jamie and Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast fame, will be cooking at one of the dinners alongside Giancarlo Caldesi / Image: Festa Italiana

On the following evening (Sunday 29 August) Maurizio will be joined by another Italian foodie icon – San Carlo’s executive chef Aldo Zilli.

An award-winning restaurateur in his own right, Zilli has appeared on numerous UK TV shows such as The One Show, This Morning and Celebrity Masterchef – not to mention having created some absolute star dishes for glitzy Italian restaurant favourite San Carlo in recent years.

The view from the banqueting area at the last Festa Italiana / Image: Festa Italiana

On both nights the renowned chefs will prepare and serve three courses of authentic Italian cuisine for their guests from inside the Festa’s open dining space.

Menus are being kept strictly under wraps for now, but we are expecting big things from these top-class foodies.

Tickets are on sale now for £65 which includes a welcome drink on arrival. We don’t expect they’ll be around for long, given the star-studded line-up that Festa has pulled in this year.

If you want to get your hands on one, you can do so here.