Edinburgh Food Festival to return in the summer - here's when you will be able to visit

The Capital’s only free food festival which welcomed over 40,000 visitors is set to return this summer with a bigger and better event.

Edinburgh Food Festival will return to Assembly George Square Gardens with a theme of ‘Coasts and Waters’ designed to add to the celebrations set out for the showcase of Scotland’s coasts this year by VisitScotland.

The annual foodie event will take place over ten days, from Friday 24 July until Sunday 2 August.

This year, the city centre food festival will include a series of live chef demonstrations from some of Scotland’s top culinary talent, who will be cooking up a variety of tasty recipes showcasing the freshest fish and seafood from around the country’s coasts and waters in line with the theme.

The new line up for 2020 will also include the popular ‘meet the local producer’ events, as well as over 20 local producers and street food stallholders serving up some best contemporary food and drink in the country.

Since launching in 2014, the Edinburgh Food Festival has gone from strength to strength hosting some of Scotland’s top chefs and restaurateurs, including leading events chef, Barry Bryson from Cater Edinburgh, Carina Contini of Contini Edinburgh and Scott Smith from award-winning Edinburgh restaurant, Fhior.

In 2019, the event welcomed over 40,000 visitors who flocked to George Square Gardens to enjoy a range of delicacies as well as events.

This year, organisers expect it to be bigger and better than the last.

Four-legged friends are also welcome to the non-ticketed event along with their owners.

With quality Scottish food and drink at the heart of it, Assembly’s Edinburgh Food Festival is an opportunity to ntroduce for people of all ages from across the UK and beyond to get a flavour for what Scotland’s larder has to offer in a safe, green, family-friendly oasis.

Last year, on the festival’s fifth anniversary, almost double the amount of visitors from the previous year flocked to the area to enjoy some of the country’s best contemporary food and drink

Street food vendors included Chick + Pea, Mana Poke, Norelli, Edinburgh Food Social, Punjabi Junction

Dani Rae, general manager of Edinburgh Food Festival, said: “We’re really excited to be to be celebrating Scotland’s official year of Coasts & Waters in 2020.

“Since launching six years ago, we have quickly established the event as Edinburgh’s only free, city centre food festival, offering a mouth-watering line-up of food and drink activities for all the family.

“As well as new chef demonstrations, our bumper line-up for 2020 will include a series of meet the local producer events, plus a wide variety of local producers and street food stallholders serving up some of Scotland’s best contemporary food and drink over 10 days.

“Festivalgoers can find out more about this year’s line-up at www.edfoodfest.com and by following us on social media using hashtags #EdFoodFest2020 and #YCW2020.”