A celebration of good food and drink

9:52am Thursday 10th July 2008

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FOOD of all types, beer and wine are on the menu in several venues in this year's Devizes Food and Drink Festival.

The week long festival opens on Saturday in the Market Place with a food fair. Masterchef John Torode will be at the free fair and give a cooking demonstration.

This will be followed by cook offs between James Nathan, the winner of Masterchef, and Tom Snell, chef of The Hare restaurant in Lambourn, and between Masterchef runner-up Jonny Stevenson and Jonathon Furby, chef of The Linnett at Great Hinton.

Devizes chef Peter Vaughan will also be involved in a cook off with local children.

Butchers Walter Rose and Son, the festival's main sponsor, will have a marquee where there will be displays of food, including cheese, and chefs will be cooking meat for people to eat.

Live farm animals which proved popular last year will be there again along with various stalls and a pig roast.

On the same the day the town hall hosts a beer tasting event which costs £5.

The festival includes meals in local restaurants - Jal Khabar, Isola Bella, the Healthy Life Bistro and Bambou. The Lamb Inn will also host a foodie quiz on Monday. The town hall is hosting a marriage of wine with foods on Wednesday and Wadworth Brewery and Visitor Centre are hosting tours and a free buffet lunch.

The Chamber of Commerce is organising a business breakfast on Tuesday featuring Guy Tullberg of Malmesbury based Tracklement Foods.

The finale of the festival is a Greek taverna evening in The Shambles market on Saturday July 19.

Festival chairman Brian Crane said: "Last year we held an English food evening but attracted about half of the people we got the previous year for a Spanish evening. We think people prefer ethnic food so we decided on a Greek food evening."

Tickets from Devizes Books and the Visitor Centre. Details on www.devizesfoodanddrink.co.uk