Photo of
October 6, 2016
(L-R) Leigh Farmer, General Manager, CAU, Neil Forbes, Café St Honoré, Leanne Robertson, Sous Chef, CAU, Mike Caldwell, Veeno(Photograph: MAVERICK PHOTO AGENCY)
Many of the city’s most exciting restaurants are taking part in the Festival. Pic: Maverick Photo Agency.

Edinburgh’s Restaurant Festival gets underway for a third time today.

Running until the 16th of October, the festival encourages people ‘to sample styles of food that they have never tried before’ and to take advantage of the ten day programme of special events, tasting menus and offers.

Since Edinburgh has more restaurants per head of population than any other city in the UK, it won’t be a huge struggle to find somewhere new for a spot of interesting nosebag.

Over 30 of the city’s restaurants have signed up to take part in this year’s Festival. From well established, classic restaurants, such as The Pompadour by Galvin, to newcomers, like Badger & Co, many of them can be booked via 5pm Dining.

Cake disco

As well as special Festival menus, there will be a series of fun events taking place over the next ten days.

We were tickled by the cake disco which Hendersons Shop and Deli is holding.

On Saturday 8th October, visitors can tuck into the ‘freshest raw, vegan and gluten-free’ cakes under a disco ball while David Elder drops the platters that matter.

Look out for Get Down On It pumpkin pie and You Sexy Thing, an avocado and chocolate mousse cake.

Let’s do lunch

If you are strolling around town, you might also want to keep an eye open for the Festival’s social media challenge.

Called Let’s Do Lunch, the challenge will see a festival-branded table and chairs pop up in unexpected places around the city each weekday morning.

Passers-by are invited to post a selfie of themselves at the table to be in with a chance of winning a daily free lunch prize for two.

We have heard a rumour that the table may well be at St Andrews Square this morning.

These may be useful: @EdinEvents #EdRestaurantFest

Meet the suppliers

There will also be a Meet the Suppliers event at The Pompadour by Galvin on Thursday 13th October.

Five of the restaurant’s suppliers will be talking about their produce over a four course dinner.

If any of the events tickle your fancy, we advise booking in quickly. The Moveable Feast event – diners eat five different courses in five different restaurants – sold out before the Festival started.

Roddy Smith, Chief Executive of Essential Edinburgh, the company behind EdinEvents, is excited to see the return of this popular festival to the City’s calendar. He commented: ‘There are so many exciting new restaurant openings in Edinburgh this autumn… so we have lots to celebrate as the Edinburgh Restaurant Festival comes into its third year.

In Edinburgh you really can go on a culinary journey around the world, and the city is bursting with different styles, flavours and menus, all served up to a world class standard.’

The Edinburgh Restaurant Festival runs until 16th October 2016

The full programme is available here.