International line-up for Lancashire food festival

Just three years after its launch, Nigel Haworth's annual Festival of Food and Wine has established itself as a highlight on the culinary calendar.

Using his contacts with his peers, the chef-proprietor of Lancashire's one-Michelin-starred Northcote Manor has managed over the last two years to persuade chefs in the vanguard of modern cooking to strut their stuff in his home county - and next month he has lured an international line-up for the event.

Home-grown talent cooking at the 2003 festival, taking place from 27 January to 2 February, includes Heston Blumenthal, the Fat Duck's revolutionary chef-proprietor, and the Square's Philip Howard - both, of course, two-Michelin-star holders and both equally notorious for only reluctantly leaving their kitchens. It's Howard's third visit, so what's the attraction?

"We're very much into cooking at the festival and we encourage chefs to come up here, bring their families, relax and enjoy themselves. And we give them a very organised platform to work from. They can do the same quality of food that they would put out in their own restaurants," Haworth explained.

At the 2002 festival, Haworth introduced British diners to the adventurous cooking of Sweden's Danyel Couet from Fredsgatan 12 in Stockholm, and for the 2003 event he has managed to entice a Couet protégé, Christian Olsson from Stockholm's Vassa Eggen restaurant. "He's worked in America, Ecuador and Sweden and he's very risky, very new-wave Swedish cooking - really pushing the boundaries," Haworth said.

A transatlantic flavour will be on show, too, with the return to his home county of Accrington-born chef Neil Wigglesworth, who garnered culinary plaudits for his Great Harwood restaurant, Tiffany's, in the early 1990s. Wigglesworth is now executive chef at Twin Farms in Vermont, one of the USA's leading country house hotel/restaurants.

Cooking brothers Chris and Jeff Galvin (chef-proprietor of London's Orrery and executive head chef at L'Escargot, respectively) are booked in to get the festival rolling on its first day, while Smiths of Smithfield's John Torode and Haworth himself will put out menus on the penultimate and closing evenings.

As in previous years, students from Lancaster and Morecambe College and Accrington Catering College will be working in Northcote's kitchen during the festival. "One of the main aims was to get stronger educational links with colleges and give the top students the chance to work with the top chefs in the industry," Haworth said. "It's also very motivational for my own staff at Northcote.

"From an educational point of view it helps everybody. It gives us all the chance to sit around and discuss food. It's quite hard for chefs like me to just go off and do stages like we used. Northcote gives us time to exchange ideas and that's fantastic. It's very much a cook's festival."

Festival dates

Northcote Manor's Festival of Food and Wine is structured around a series of gourmet dinners cooked by guest chefs between 27 January and 2 February 2003. Cost ranges between £65 and £85 per person depending on the chef cooking. For further information, call 01254 240555.