Food lovers enjoyed a gastronomic celebration of tasty street food, live music and talks from top chefs at Foodies Festival in South Parks this weekend.
The sun was shining for Oxford's foodies at the three day event after the festival was unable to go ahead since 2019 because of the pandemic.
The weekend's menu was full of talks from top chefs including MasterChef and Bake Off champions, live music from Scouting for Girls and Toploader and the festivals famous chilli eating competition.
Foodies Festival began in 2004 and was rapidly dubbed the ‘gastro-Glastonbury’.
This year more than 50 bands and artists took to the stage across the long weekend while over 150 exhibitors will showcased their produce at the Covid-safe event, providing festival-goers with a fantastic opportunity to sample the best of Oxford - and to try a huge selection of delicious food and drink from around the world.
Masterchef finalist for 2021 Madeeha Qureshi took to the stage to show off her culinary skills and inspire the audience. On Masterchef she impressed the judges with her unique and unknown dishes - including one inspired by Saudi Arabian street food.
Channel 4's Sunday Brunch Bread Expert Jack Sturgess, also known as 'Bake with Jack', showed his baking skills to the Foodies audience with a step by step class on cooking apple and cinnamon buns.
Mr Sturgess is a professional Chef turned bread maker, demonstrator, and educator.
Some brave foodies put their taste buds to the ultimate test and challenged themselves to a chilli eating competition. Competitors went head to head to see who could stand the heat and eat the hottest chilli.
There to judge was the 'UK Chilli Queen' Shahina Zeenat Waseem who checked each contestant ate the spicy chilli right to the stalk.
The festival was full of delicious street food stalls, beer, wine and also local food businesses from across Oxfordshire and the UK.
After a year of no festivals Colette Yarnald was pleased to finally be back and selling her brownies and shortcakes.
The baker said: "As soon as festivals opened we were back at them. It is good to be back, especially with the live music and the atmosphere here."
Sam Ludlow, the owner of Sam's Cotswolds Kitchen was selling his jams, chutneys and other preserves for the first time at Foodies Festival.
Lockdown made Mr Ludlow realise he did not need to work his nine to five and instead he started his chutney business. Now almost two years later he is enjoying the buzz of Foodies.
He said: "I started the business in Lockdown, so it has been quite and interesting 18 months.
"This is my first time here and this year I am trying the bigger events and food festivals."
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