The Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival is back this month with a stellar line up of chefs and producers descending on Snape Maltings on September 23 and 24.

Now in its 18th year, the foodies festival proudly showcases the multitude of home-grown producers Suffolk has to offer, as well as honouring the county’s culinary and agricultural heritage. Renowned chefs will host masterclasses, there will be food demonstrations over two stages and the grounds will be filled with more than 130 stalls from Suffolk’s big-name producers, as well as rising stars of the local food and drink producing industry.

Exciting new additions to the festival this year include:

- Award-winning Suffolk chocolatiers Pump Street Chocolate will be taking over the Hoffman Building, with talks and chocolate tastings every hour, on the hour. The beloved small-batch, bean-to-bar chocolate brand will give visitors an insight into the chocolate-making process and a chance to sample their celebrated chocolate bars, hot drinking chocolate and soft-serve chocolate ice-cream.

- The Family Area is now bigger than ever, with kids’ cookery classes (including fish classes from chef CJ Jackson aka Fish Boss) and demonstrations for budding chefs; The Sheep Show; tractors and agricultural equipment to explore; and a new free Festival Workbook for Under 16s featuring recipes, a producer trail and more.

- Aldeburgh’s prestigious restaurant The Suffolk will be hosting a huge seafood barbeque in their brand new festival eaterie along the quay.

- The buzzing Street Food area returns, with more vendors than ever before. A new cocktail bar from Suffolk cocktail company Niche has been added to the mix of mouth-watering offerings for visitors across the weekend.

The Festival Main Stage attracts some of the biggest names in the UK food scene including:

• Thomasina Miers – co-founder of Wahaca restaurants, food pioneer, chef, writer, and honorary Festival Patron.

• Pierre Koffman - the French chef is one of a handful of chefs in the UK awarded three Michelin stars at his restaurant La Tante Claire in London.

• Jeremy Lee - British chef and chef proprietor at Quo Vadis, London. He has previously been head chef at the Blueprint Café for eighteen years and is a regular face on TV cookery shows.

• Cyrus Todiwala OBE of acclaimed Indian restaurant Café Spice Namasté.

• Dave Wall – Chef Patron at Suffolk’s The Unruly Pig, named best gastropub in the UK in the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs in 2022.

• George Pell – Director of The Suffolk in Aldebugh and L’Escargot in London.

• Nicola Hordern – award-winning head chef at Southwold’s The Canteen.

A selection of incredible local chefs will also be showcased through the weekend. The event also sees the return of the Passion For Seafood Stage which focuses on Suffolk’s thriving industry of seafood caught, prepared and sold on the east coast. The stage is a celebration of Suffolk’s many sustainable seafood businesses and will include live cooking demos, talks and seafood street food. Over the weekend, the food demonstrations and talks on both stages will be more informal than before. No booking is required, they will be every hour, on the hour, free to all visitors.

The 2023 line-up of Masterclasses (which require separate booking and payment) includes an Adnams cocktail class, kimchi-making with Jeong-un Creagh of Korean Kitchen, Two Magpies Bakery co-founder Rebecca Bishop on bread-making, Pump Street Chocolate, “Fish Boss” chef CJ Jackson, and TV chef Cyrus Todiwala OBE of acclaimed Indian restaurant Café Spice Namasté.

Over 140 producers of food and drink businesses from Suffolk will be exhibiting at the Festival this year, offering everything from fresh, organic vegetables, locally-produced honey, award-winning drinks from a range of east coast breweries and distilleries, handcrafted chocolates, celebrated Suffolk cheeses and bread, plus so much more. The festival prides itself on being a place where locals and visitors to the area can discover and support the abundance of established and emerging businesses which are producing innovative and original food and beverages throughout the region.

Vegan and restricted-diet foods will feature throughout the festival offerings. Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival President, Lady Caroline Cranbrook, said: “The Aldeburgh Food & Drink Festival is now well established as one of the very best in the country, famous for the quality, quantity and variety of its locally-produced food and drink, its friendliness – and for the beauty of Snape Maltings where it is held. It has proved to be a highly successful and very enjoyable way of introducing visitors to Suffolk’s wonderful food and drink, to the people who produce it and to the land from where it comes.”

• DATE: Saturday 23 September and Sunday 24 September, 9.30am – 5pm

• VENUE: Snape Maltings, Snape, Suffolk IP17 1SP INSTAGRAM: @aldeburghfood

• TICKETS: £10 in advance, £12 on the day. Under 16s go free. Visit, www.aldeburghfoodanddrink.co.uk