Malton Food Lovers Festival: Chef Tommy Banks headlines 'three days of foodie madness'

Last year 40,000 people poured into Malton for its biggest celebration of the year - the Food Lovers Festival.

Many no doubt will be back this weekend for a second or third helping, to grab a tasty morsel from a choice of 120 stalls and see a celebrity chef line up, headed by Michelin-starred Tommy Banks.

Tom Naylor-Leyland, the eldest son of Sir Philip Naylor-Leyland, a self-confessed foodie, who trained at Dukes Hotel and worked for restaurateur Sally Clarke, says he’s looking forward to the event, in particular seeing Banks in action.

The chef will be on the main stage on Saturday demonstrating some of his culinary creations from The Black Swan at Oldstead and Roots, York. Mr Naylor-Leyland said: “It’s a joyful weekend based around what I think are the most important things in life, food and family and fun. There’s a mixture of lots of different entertainments for families and kids. We’ll definitely be going to see Tommy Banks.

“Obviously he is the youngest guy to get a Michelin star, a wonderful talent for Yorkshire and the UK. He always brings in the crowds, he’s an amazing guy and he is just a few miles away from us in Oldstead, which is brilliant.”

Joining the line up are Angelica and Crafthouse head chef Simon Jewitt and 2019 Great British Bake-Off winner David Atherton, who be serving up tasty treats on stage on Sunday.

Highlights on Monday include MasterChef: The Professionals 2020 finalists Jono Hawthorne, who will be giving festivalgoers a taste of his Leeds-based fine dining restaurant, Chef Jono at V&V.

Over the last decade Malton has made great strides towards becoming an all-year round food destination, with artisinal producers relocating there. There’s a new butcher, a wood-fired pizza maker, a gelato maker, and even a French macaron maker, Florian Poirot, who sells biscuits made in Malton in Paris.

Mr Naylor-Leyland says there’s still much to do: “I feel that our project is by no means finished, I would say not even half way through.”

He would love a smokehouse to base itself in the town along with a host of other food and drink producers. He said: “I think we can do more changes in the next 10 years and I think that’s exciting. One of the things I want to really work on is the restaurant side of things and the evening economy and try and bring more outside eating in Malton and encourage the use of pavements in a slightly different way.”

He wants Malton to once again be a town of “makers and markets” where people can come and see their drink brewed or their bread baked - and it doesn’t have to be just food - in front of them. “These market towns were always a place of industry. It’s about high quality and done on a small scale I think that’s what makes Malton, it’s the artisinal side of things.”