The Restaurant Show: 1-3 October, 2018. Olympia, London
Back in the days when putting Skittles in a bottle of vodka counted as mixology and Class Magazine didn’t always have a weird front cover, Andy Ives and Simon Webster of BarLifeUK met for the first time while working on The Restaurant Show.
Approximately 1200 hangovers later, The Restaurant Show is still going, and Andy is writing this article while Simon lays on a beach in Spain. This goes to show something, I’m just not sure what it is.
Anyway. The Restaurant Show opens its doors for the 30th time during the first week of October, and if you have the day off and Olympia is within easy reach, it might be worth a few hours of your time.
As you would expect, there will be lots of food to sample and the show generally has a healthy amount of wine and coffee exhibitors to pester. There are also some interesting demo and live event sessions on the programme, and it is worth checking the schedule before planning a visit. The following sessions caught the eye as being of potential interest to bar folk:
Monday 1st October, 3pm – Celebrating Sake, with Peter McCombie (Master of Wine)
Tuesday 2nd October, 11:30am – Best of British, with Tom Kerridge (A discussion on British cuisine and ingredients)
Wednesday 3rd October, 10:45 – Why Cocktails Matter, with World’s 50 Best Bars (You don’t need to be told why cocktails matter, but this might be a fun one to heckle)
Wednesday 3rd October, 1:40pm – Creating CUB – Ryan Cheti and Doug McMaster talk about blurring the line between food and drink
There is a full schedule of live sessions here.
The Restaurant Show also has a dedicated booze area, which used to be called Pub and Bar, but is now called Bar and Pub. Presumably this is to make you think it is more likely to be full of exotic, mixable spirits to sample and buy. However in previous years, the Pub and Bar section was mostly full of companies from Burnley selling fridges and glass washers, and a quick look at the exhibitor list doesn’t immediately speak to things having changed. Still, might be worth a quick peek…
Register to attend The Restaurant Show for free here.