Life is sweet for Liverpool’s burgeoning eating out scene, says Joel Jelen
For those of you who’ve been pre-occupied abroad recently, getting some real sun to bolster that permatan, Liverpool’s Food & Drink Festival is just around the corner.
Not great timing I’ll admit if you’ve just promised yourself to lose a few pounds as part of some new resolution formed on the beach.
Do it from September 21st when the festival finishes I say.
Why? Because it’s taken Liverpool just over a decade to grow into a city now recognised for the quality of its eating out experience.
About ten years ago, deep pocketed investors including Grosvenor and the groups behind the likes of Chaophraya, Palm Sugar, Zeligs and Barburrito in Liverpool One were probably thinking correctly (if they were at all) that Liverpool was a ‘cultural food and drink desert’ along with trade press who actually made that very statement.
Despite the recession and all the prevailing negative stats in the industry nationally, 30% of people in the region are now eating dinner out of home at least once a week, Source: Allegra 2009).
I’d be guarded to say that restaurants have escaped the brunt of the credit crunch despite the social proof that eating out for many is now a convenience and not a luxury.
They haven’t and it’s been very tough for some but that’s not wanting the festival’s Sefton Park launch to become a guilt trip. It will be more so, a roadblock on Sunday September 13th…a destination because of the quality on offer, to an extent driven by that convenience eating.
The festival site has doubled in size this year having accommodated more than 20,000 people last year.
60 of the region’s top businesses have taken space on the site in 2009…it’s by far the biggest showcase the city has ever witnessed.
The magnitude of it all says a lot about Liverpool, all the right things in fact.
Firstly, that an organisation in the form of SK Events exist (they’re not a client) that can handle what others have previously struggled to do at this level.
Secondly, punters now take their eating out habits far more seriously partly because the service in Liverpool venues matches the much-improved perception.
In addition, there are thankfully far fewer businesses setting up and playing at it helping to maintain the reputation of the sector.
There are also a number of initiatives being mooted that could help the industry in future years too including a foundation being established for the chefs of tomorrow.
Finally, I would argue that regional media never used to take the industry seriously.
Many editors saw ‘food and drink’ as a frivolous departure when hard-nosed business news stories about the industry were presented to them.
It was forgotten by those editors that it was food and drink that revitalised many national newspaper editors’ interests in Liverpool in the nineties, having spent the previous decade bashing the place.
Liverpool’s bars, restaurants and food producers will be showing off their wares come September 13th and it will be sweet revenge to all those who said it would take decades before the city was taken seriously in the sector.
That day has arrived and when I mention that the likes of AA Gill commented that 60 Hope Street is a London restaurant in Liverpool, Antonio Carluccio says Il Forno is one of his favourite restaurants and Delifonseca is being applauded by the nation’s food establishment, I’m actually scratching the surface here.
Find out why on Sunday September 13th and you’ll get your just desserts by going along. www.liverpoolfoodanddrinkfestival.co.uk
Joel Jelen is head of agency at Ubiquity pr www.ubiquitypr.co.uk