A taste of what is on the menu at festival

More events from the city’s thriving independent food and drink scene are being revealed this weekend and sales of passport type tickets are proving most popular.

In total there will be 90 events based at various restaurants, cafes, bars and pop-ups around the city centre and also the outlying suburbs.

Simon Fogal, from I Like Press, hosting the event, said they could easily have 300 partners on board.

He told City Buzz: “People kick themselves when the deadline is up and they have missed it. We have to be quite strict otherwise we will end up with 300 events.

“We only wanted ten for the first one and launched a Kickstart appeal. It reached the target quite quickly and people liked the idea. Every year it gets more slick and professional.”

With events ranging from cheese to chocolate to coffee tasting, making and brewing to wine pairings and some more random collaborations.

As well as individual events there are delicious double acts and a huge emphasis on local ingredients and suppliers.

City Buzz has got a flavour of the events announced so far so foodies can peruse the menu and here are a few which tempted the tastebuds.

Mill Kitchen in Farsley will be holding a Yorkshire Food and Wine pairing with a four course menu and every ingredient involved is from Yorkshire.

A Meet The Merchants Wine Fair will be held at the Corn Exchange with local producers such as Latitude, Ham and Friends and Alpine Wines providing the booze and Leeds cheese mongers George and Joseph providing nibbles.

They will also put a tea twist on the usual cheese tasting with their Big Cheese Tease at House of Koko. Rather than pairing the different cheese with wine or port, there will be a matching brew instead.

For the sweet tooth the session with 200 Degrees North and Tyto Leodis Confectionary is not to be missed as you can have a tasting and science lesson before making your own chocolatey creations and one of the more unusual, not for the calorie conscious (but let’s be honest we all will fancy this) is a five course donut and beer matching at North Bar.

And those with special dietary requirements...there is still a feast to be had.

The chefs at the usually traditional Cross Keys pub are doing away with the roast dinners and cooking up a five course vegan tasting menu where the veg takes pride of place on the table - alongside a vegan wine flight too.

Leeds food fans can make sure they don’t go hungry by purchasing a passport ticket where, like a real one, you get stamps as you visit different places given access to discounts of up to 25 per cent.

All of the money made from ticket and passport sales goes back into marketing and promoting the independent food and drink establishments.

Mr Fogal said: “I work with national food and drink magazines and it is hard to get them to write about Leeds so we need to give them a reason.

“This is about creating awareness of Leeds as a food destination and every year we have different people involved.”