The Scottish final of one of the UK’s biggest cooking competitions will take place during the Edinburgh Food Festival this year as part of its ten-year anniversary programme.
The British Street Food Awards and Edinburgh Food Festival have announced a partnership for this year’s events, which will see regional finalists from across the country serve up their best dishes at Assembly George Square Gardens from Saturday, July 20 to Sunday, July 21.
Started in 2015 as part of Scotland’s Year of Food and Drink, the Edinburgh Food Festival has become a mainstay of Edinburgh’s event calendar which celebrates food and drink producers from Midlothian and across Scotland.
Dani Rae, managing director Assembly Festival, said: “We’re excited to be partnering with British Street Food Awards.
“Showcasing Edinburgh and Scotland’s best street food and supporting up-and-coming entrepreneurs is what Edinburgh Food Fest is about, so it’s a match made in heaven.
“We’ll be celebrating 10 years of bringing excellent food and drink to Assembly George Square Gardens, kicking off with this fantastic event, what a summer it’s set to be.”
A British Street Food Award is said to be a prize that “genuinely changes” lives, with past winners including Wingmans, Bao and MEATliquoir all going on to open their own bricks and mortar venues.
READ MORE: 'A Scotland first': Great British Menu star and city restaurant to launch new concept
As well as trying to impress an all-star panel which has previously included Michelin-starred Condita Head Chef Conor Toomey, traders will be vying to win the public vote for the People’s Choice Award.
Both winners will then go on to London for the finals of the 2024 British Street Food Awards.
Last year’s champions, Fife-based husband and wife team Choola, told the Herald: “We still keep having these little moments where we can’t quite believe this has happened.
“We entered the Scottish Street Food Awards on a whim, so to have been joint winners there was surprising enough.
“We weren’t expecting anything other than the chance to meet some new people and eat some great food at the British finals in London.
“The fact that we won there too is absolutely crazy.”
READ MORE: Fife couple brings the flavours of Nepal to Scotland with award-winning street food
In addition to the Scottish finals, Food Mutiny, the company behind the British Street Food Awards, will be running competitions in 16 other European countries this summer, as well as the first-ever USA Street Food Awards.
Richard Johnson, Food Mutiny founder, said: “Scotland is on top of the world.
"2022 and 2023 proved to be the best years ever for street food in Scotland with traders winning big at the British and the European Street Food Awards.
“Our Scottish finalists will be hoping for a repeat performance this year when they park up at the Edinburgh Food Festival in George Square Gardens in July.
“We don’t want a fixed starter-main course-dessert menu anymore. We want a bit of this and a bit of that. Flirty, low-commitment dining. Plus, it’s inclusive. And in a world like ours, that’s a positive message right now.”
Hungry for more food and drink news? Sign up to our weekly Food Matters newsletter here.
The free-to-attend Edinburgh Food Festival will begin on Friday, July 19 and run through to Sunday, July 28.
The ten-day event offers talks, demonstrations, and hands-on workshops from some of Scotland’s most acclaimed chefs and producers, as well as an extensive menu of street food to discover.
For further information and to sign up to receive programme news and updates, visit britishstreetfood.co.uk or edfoodfest.com.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here