Taste of London

Reviewing Taste of London is hard — I love to go, and have been nearly every year since it moved to Regents Park about 10 years ago. I think though that this year was the worst it’s been — probably only deserving of 2 stars, but I’ve bumped it up to 3 based on how it was before and how I hope it will start to be again!
It seemed smaller this year — there were just as many restaurants and bars, but there really seemed to be a lot less other exhibitors. No British Airways, for example, and the nice Thai section was noticeably absent.
We always go to the first session if we can, as it’s not as crowded and the workers are all still happy and excited. The energy of the traders and the staff was great as ever, but it was actually really quite busy. We had to queue for about 10 minutes to get in (they make you go through this ridiculous zig zag queue which takes forever). We were there right at opening though so there weren’t queues for the restaurants when we arrived. By the time we left around 8pm though, you couldn’t even get into some of the restaurant areas.
As ever, we had bought some crowns (event currency) on the way in. We always get £30 but have a hard time spending it all, so this year just got £20 — and it wasn’t nearly enough. Luckily the restaurants all had terminals to take contactless payment cards, so in the future, we’ll just do that and forget the stupid crowns. The fact though that we ran out of crowns so quickly really shows that the prices of the dishes have gone up. We had the icon taco dish from Mestizo — delicious, but £12 for 4 tiny tacos was way too expensive. We had a deconstructed kebab from Palomar and also their AMAZING polenta — both, again, quite expensive. Some seafood dumplings from Roka were better value at around £5 for 2 — which is, of course, not great value in the grand scheme of things, especially when you’re paying £20 or more just to walk in the door. Luckily I had free entry tickets, so I didn’t have that to contend with. We had some fancy peanut butter cheesecake from somewhere that wasn’t great but we managed to finish (surprise, surprise).
A big gripe was that there was no where to eat anything this year. Normally all of the restuarant areas have these tall benches covered in astroturf that you can lean against — this year, we had a hard time finding them as they weren’t at every restaurant area. A huge pain!
As ever, our best buys came from the small producers market, where we left with lots of Yum Yum Tree Fudge, some Kan Kun jalapeño sauce, and some cashews — plus plenty of samples as we walked through.
Overall we spent £40 on the restaurant food and didn’t leave full. The overpriced plates, which I swear are getting smaller, really rubbed me the wrong way and I don’t know how I feel about returning next year. I just hope that if I do, some of the magic returns. We didn’t stop to listen to any of the chef stuff as they weren’t really big names or doing anything interesting. I did nearly physically crash into Raymond Blanc. Luckily I got my stuff together in time and didn’t embarrass myself!

Food, booze and more booze. This was the case for London’s Taste of London this year. Highly excited about this event since eating my fatty guts out at the Taste of Auckland the last few years, I must say I was a tad disappointed.
I know London is big on its drinking culture, but felt Taste of London was more focussed on the alcohol than showcasing gourmet food from amazing talented chefs.
Dont get me wrong, there was still plenty of opportunity to fill up the belly, but i felt i didn’t get that excitement where I wanted to eat everything from all the restaurants like Auckland. I feel like they really cater for the English crowd, serving simpler dishes. Its great that they came out super quick, but it meant the dishes lost their quality. I would have rather waited 5mins longer for a steaming hot dish. It just means the quality of the dish is lost and these are suppose to be some of London’s top restaurants on display.
From what I did sample.
Barbecoa: Smoked and Fried Wings — Tasty dish, but in my mind I thought they may have been crispy hence being fried. Cooked well, not sure the white bbq sauce flavour was that strong, but the cashews gave the dish a nice amount of texture.
Duck and Waffle: Duck and Waffle — sampling «THE» dish. The waffle was deliciously fluffy and the duck and egg was cooked well. I dont think the dish was amazing and for 12crowns — eek but I am willing to give it a 2^nd chance at the restaurant itself and hope the quality and flavours are more accurate.
L’Autre Pied: Cornish Crab — Very light and refreshing dish! Well balanced and definitely has made me want to eat at the restaurant.
Spice Market: Crispy Soft Shell Crab — I can’t get enough of soft shell crab — who can’t?! The slaw was rather sad looking though and the proportion of filling to the large bun was completely wrong. Great conception, just needs a few tweaks.
Shake Shack: Malted Marshmallow Dessert — So delish. The peanut butter was subtle and not too overwhelming and the choc covered pretzels just made this dish!
Overall — A very different scene to the Taste of Auckland. A few hits and misses but if you are more of an alcoholic then a foodie then def venture here next year.

Taste of London used to be amazing — this was not the case this year! Not many chefs, the food on offer from the «top» restaurants just didn’t appeal. Even the stalls seemed to have diminished. What a shame! Don’t think I’ll bother going next year.

Like Pamela, this is a tricky one. Full disclosure, although three of us went, we had two free tickets courtesy of Lickalix after I won their retweet competition. This meant that we avoided having to pay £58 worth of tickets (£29 each). Had I paid the extra, I think I might have felt differently. However we all did still have a good time.
I bought an initial investment of 10 crowns and was happy with the amount. Most took cash and we had plenty, and when we ran out of crowns, they took contactless payment so there was really no issue with purchasing crowns (top tip, a lot of stands that took both cash and crowns accepted a mixture as payment).
After checking in at Lickalix and saying hello to the ladies, my parents and I wandered through the event, purchasing some absolutely fantastic sausage rolls (left the card at home, name to come), sampling little bites from around the world. Taster dishes from the large restaurants started at £4 and went up to £11 in my experience. The most expensive being the Iberico pork dish that we had. My only grumbling is that you didn’t always get a lot for your money — biggest offender here was Shake Shack which served a mini burger for £5, for 25 pence more, you could have been at their Covent Garden branch getting a full size burger… Shame on you!
That said there were so many vendors and special offers to be had, for £5 a time we got: —
Two packets of ravioli, a bottle of sauce and a shopping bag
5 boxes of bonne maman biscuits, some extra singles and a shopping bag
6 organic all natural energy drinks and (you guessed it) a bag for them
4 fantastic tasting energy bars based I think on Baobab?
I’d never been before so had nothing to really compare it against but I did have a good time. We got to meet Marcus Waering and Monica Galetti as we made out way through the stands. Everyone seemed to be having a good time despite the drizzle.
Would I go again? Maybe if I got reduced tickets — saturday is the most expensive day after all. It was a nice distraction and we did get some very good food.

Taste of London is loosing it BIG TIME !
I used to be a big fan of this event and have been practically every year since it started back many many years ago. However this year 2015 I feel that TOL does not offer the amazing experience of what it used to. It does not have celebrity chefs anymore cooking with people ie Tom Kitchen now it is only Jeremy Pang even though he is nice guy and funny he is not in the league of celeb /​Michelin starred chefs. Another disappointment is that British Airways nor O2 do a section or a VIP area which really did bring class to TOL. It even seemed to me that there was not as many restaurants and the food offered was not that appealing. Also the cost to buy any of the food is now very expensive you might only get about 4 or 5 dishes with £40 worth off crowns (dishes range from 4 — 12 crowns each approx.). The only restaurants in my view that are still great and nice to see at TOL is Theo Randall at the InterContinental and Michel Roux restaurant. It is disappointing not to see Opera Tavern there as I used to love getting my courgette flower filled with goats cheese and disappointing not to see any of Gordans restaurants there plus many other top restaurants that used to be part of TOL. I remember the days when top chefs like Gordan, Gary Rhodes, Heston etc used to go along to TOL and do a small talk in the VIP tents and do a stage presentation where have those days gone.
After this years experience I will not be going back. Only reason I went this year was because I went along to support one of my favourite chefs Theo Randall who is a great chef and is always very welcoming and nice to chat to and his food is amazing.

Taste of London is a food festival which is a must do if you are a foodie or if you would just like to have a lovely day out trying new produce and to soak up the atmosphere! Here I found many unique things which I loved for example, the drunken dairy icecream company where they infused alcohol into icecream! The flavours were really tasty I ordered the mohito which had fresh mint leaves, rum and a lime sorbet. Another stand out was the duck and waffle. This is very popular in London. The dish consists of a waffle, duck, maple syrup and a fried egg! This was delishious… Very very creative! They had a range of popcorn too and some flavoured ones were outstanding. For example: Ginger, wasabi, caramel, chili, lime. So varied! These are just a few examples you can really get lost in this festival… They also had live music from unnamed but very talented artists. Top day!

I’ve been to Taste of London for many years now and I think it’s starting to lose it’s flare and genre for this event over the years as the amount of celebrity chefs seems to dwindle every year which we like to see top names and not too many of the BIG names have appeared I. e Gordon Ramsay etc, still had a good time though sampling all different types of food and drink along with lots of freebies to get, The prices of meals via Crowns (1 Crown = £1) seem to have risen also with many good dishes ranging from 10 – 12 Crowns per serving.

This one is a tricky one because I’m definitely glad I went, I had a LOT of food and I got to watch and try some things I probably wouldn’t have… but it’s way too expensive for what it is and the choice is lacking.
The idea is that you pay £20 entry and then can buy ‘crowns’, marketed as the alternative to money if you want to buy taster dishes, priced at around £3 — £5. In reality, this isn’t the case.
For starters, a lot of places didn’t accept crowns. And the ones that did? Definitely weren’t selling tasters for between £3 and £5. The only thing we could get in that budget was an alcoholic ice lolly from LickALix (which was delicious, hence the conflict in my mind). So I’m not best pleased about that. False advertising for sure.
Once you get over the fact that your 20 crowns won’t get you more than two or three things, Taste of London is cool. Plenty of variety and something for everyone.
Soft drinks, alcoholic drinks, spicy food, desserts, baked goods, Thai, Indian, Japanese, even Buenos Aires was represented here. If there’s one thing you can say about Taste is that you’re spoilt for choice.
We decided to walk around before committing to anything because we didn’t want to see something amazing, spend all our crowns on it and then miss out on even more amazingness further round. I’d definitely recommend you do this because we spotted some bargains and some overpriced stuff in equal measure.
In the end, we settled on a great deal from Buenos Aires Steakhouse, who were doing a steak sandwich and beer for £8. Ridiculously cheap for what you got. I mean it, the portion was MASSIVE. They called it a sandwich but it was a baguette, stuffed full of steak and the most delicious sauce going. It took me 20 minutes just to get through the thing, it was that big. And the beer was good, filled right to the top of the glass. We managed to snag some seats just in the nick of time too before the hoards of people descended on the best deal at Taste by FAR. Beautiful.
After we’d eaten our fill, we meandered around and tried some tasters of pizza, cakes, curries, popcorn and alcobol. All delicious. But I was quite disappointed that there wasn’t any sushi available. SushiSamba were there but offering drinks, not food, and the only other sushi place we found had a person out the front waving people in to their stall where they were offering no tasters and plates of two or three sushi bites for £7. Seriously?
There was a lot of that going on too. People smiling, waving and chatting to you until they’ve plonked you in front of their stall, where you then discover you’re expected to pay a tenner for three bites of something you hadn’t even heard of before. Talk about pressure selling.
A lot of the stalls didn’t take Crowns either — disappointing considering their website and staff heavily promote them as being the main source of payment and so we didn’t bring a lot of cash. We definitely should have. They also don’t have any facility to change your crowns back into cash at the end if you’ve still got some, which, considering the cheapest thing is 3 crowns, leaves you essentially forced into throwing £2 to charity as you walk out. Sneaky.
The highlight of our visit, though, was Thai World. This was a section of Taste purely focused on Thai cuisine, treats and even workshops. The whole thing was spectacular. It was also here I discovered Mr Sookma, sugar work extrodinaire. He had possibly the biggest crowd around him and was selling his sugar creations for just a pound. Crazy. That alone made the whole thing worthwhile for me and I got a beautiful pink sugar rose to take home.
All in all, Taste of London is something I think you have to go to at least once in your life. The people who do offer tasters definitely drew me in and I know I’ll be getting some more of that Rossopomodoro pizza.
But generally, there’s an imbalance between food and drink. Much more of the latter than the former. And if you DO want to buy something? Prepare yourself for a wallet bashing.
If you’re going for anything in particular, it would be better to go to the actual restaurant and have a whole meal. Much better value for money. But I’m happy with what I got. Now I can tick it off my list and go back to eating more than bites.

an update since my review as a Qyper.
Tickets are a lot more expensive now £28 and they have lots of exclusive entry tickets for a lot more eg vip, mahiki, laurent perrier this gives you fast access, exclusive use of their tent and crowns and 1 or 2 free drinks.
Some very good restaurants sell their food and smaller businesses give out samples. This year Taste of Korea was one of the partners and it was the best year for free samples and they were big portions and didn’t mind if you went back for seconds you could actually spend nothing bar your entrance fee this year.
I always try out competitions for tickets as its way too expensive to buy one and then spend more on food once inside.

I hated it… absolutely hated it. A total waste of money.
Nothing tasted good, the place was over-​crowded, no special seating arrangement, small portions of expensive reheated crap, massively over-​priced, no freebies.
No parking arrangements.
It was meant to be a Fathers day treat for my husband from my son but was a nightmare.
They ruined my day completely.
I didnt even want to give it tht one star but this website says tht space can’t be blank.

Waste of time and money — the restaurants think nothing of serving reheated crap and charging about £5-£6 (5 – 6 crowns!) for essentially a mouthful of bearly iidentifiable reheated smulch. Good to restaurants, as our good experiences of some restaurants showcasing here has not been the same when we visited their stands in Taste of London. Got great Irish sourdough and choc brownie /​carrot cake from Flourpower Bakery.

While this is a fantastic idea top restaurants, top chefs, top location showcasing their wonderful craft, it did leave my palate wanting. I tagged along with a couple of friends who had been in the past and I’m half glad I had a complimentary ticket, as I would be moaning about the lack of free samples or the sizes of the portions to taste. Couple of mouthfuls for £6 and probably doesn’t taste as good as the real thing at the real restaurant. Thankfully the calamari from Busaba and the suckling pig from Fino did the trick to stave off the hunger pangs. My ticket didn’t get me into the VIP bits which I’m sure are wonderful.
That said, I had a fantastic time out. Met new acquaintances. Shared a very good bottle of champagne bought from Eminent Wines. Weather was almost agreeable and the atmosphere was a like a Woodstock for Foodies lots of pretentious Oohs, Ahhs and Yahhs. Will go again next year but won’t pay the twenty odd quid to get in.

I’m so over taste of london, £22 for tickets and then once you’re inside barely any free samples and miniscule portions of food. This is under the guise of letting you taste lots of different dishes but frankly we all know how easy it is to rack up a huge bill when you’re eating tapas and the same principle applies here. In addition, the crowns feel like play money so it’s another trick to make you lose track of how much you’re spending. Also none of the food is good. I appreciate that they’re not cooking things to order but if I wanted reheated crap I’d nuke something in the microwave myself. Low points includes a «mash» from Tom’s kitchen that tasted more like foam. Save yourself some money and go and eat in the restaurants instead.

I love the taste of london
you dont need to buy the crowns to be full as there are loads of free samples to taste
I always buy the wasabi prawns from Kai of mayfair and lamb chops from benares
Basically you get to sample signature dishes from top london restaurants using your crowns.
This is foodie heaven
I will be buying my vip ticket for the 3^rd year in a row soon, this gives you priority access, glass of champagne and £20 of crowns

A great idea for London and foodies.
However this was the most expensive festival I have been too. £20 entrance with a £3.00 bookin fee!
I was a Kid in a Candy Shop and licking my lips imagining the London and Worlds Delights on display.
Everything cost money except the free samples of Bread and Olive Oil. In Credit Crunch times £23 is a lot to spend to have a few samples bread and olive oil.
Yes there was good food on display and available however it all cost so much to try and not impressed. I understand that you cannot supposedly serve some of the finest dishes and make it taste amazing while eating of paper plates with plastic spoons.
We tried a Burger and was charged £5.00 for this taking me a mouthful to eat and thought wow that was so poor. I have been here for 7 minutes and spent £5.00 on a mouthful on a burger. It was a size of a 50p coin! My friend actually told the restaurant who I do not want to name and shame this is a rip off and the lady who served us agreed.
We sampled a few other restaurants and thought Fino had amazing Lamb Cutlets.
I had the pleaseure to meet Michelle Roux he was so friendly. We did not get to go to the British Airways lounge as I was not a an Executive Card Holder. Atul Kutcher was cool and very friendly.
The weather was amazing and the best Marquee by far was the Sagatiba (Brazilian Cachaca Rum) with the Brazilian Samba blasting nicely. The cocktails were amazing and the Tropical Cocktail with a chilly kick was a true semi-​dining experience.
At a food festival why is it I that I am enjoying the Alcohol more? I love my food!

A brilliant idea (in principle): in the gorgeous setting of Regent’s Park, an exhibition that regroups the best of the UK chefs and restaurants.
I went this weekend and it kind of works… the good bits: you get to sample cuisines from top restaurants, you can meet some of the country’s top chefs (like Michel Roux and Garry Rhodes) and you can buy some great foodstuff.
But it’s all at a cost… the tickets are £20 per person, and you have to pay for all your food, which is normally about £4 or £5 per little plate. There are very few interesting free samples.
Big BA sponsorship (they have those little nice touches like a cabin crew saying goodbye on your way out).
It’s once a year (late June) so you have time to decide whether it’s for you or not.
By the way Taste also runs similar events in Bath, Dublin and Birmingham.