Dining and Feasting: Your Programme

“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.” ~ Orson Welles

Hotties and honeys, heroes and heroines. Prepare your taste buds.

The time to make your feasting plans has arrived. Assemble your dining team, pour over the decadent menus and get well and truly stuck in. Rejoice. Our feasts, dining festivities and Long Table Banquets open for bookings on Thursday at 10am.

The chefs at the helm are some of most inspiring of our time. Please welcome the immensely talented and multi-starred wonder Claude Bosi, award-winning Darjeeling Express founder Asma Khan, Irish favourite and triple Great British Menu winner Richard Corrigan and trailblazing chef and broadcaster of the hour Andi Oliver. At no other festival will you find such a glorious ensemble. Fine dining in a field never tasted so good.

Ben Quinn and the Woodfired Canteen team will once again be cooking up a storm over live fire, under the chandelier bedecked woodland canopy of the Wychwood Forest at his iconic and utterly magical Long Table in the Woods. Join the musical procession, leaving the hustle and bustle of the festival behind to find your seat at the table. With sittings across the whole weekend from Friday to Sunday, diners can enjoy a long, lingering lunch in the sun-dappled glade.

Perched on a hillside overlooking the glistening waters of Lake Wilderness, The Chef’s Table is the jewel in the feasting crown. Join the handful of diners sitting around the counter, sipping fine wine, and chatting to the masterminds behind the seven-course feast.

This year, we welcome chef and owner of the Two-Michelin starred Da Terra Rafael Cagali, executive chef at Michelin-starred Hide Josh Angus, Apricity owner and joyful dining advocate Chantelle Nicholson and Helsinki based zero-waste restaurant Nolla.

The Wilderness Kitchen returns completely reimagined, with a raucous collection of supperclubs interwoven with wild entertainment in classic Wilderness style. Brunch aficionados Caravan deliver a signature Bloody Mary brunch and lunch on Friday and Saturday, while London chop house experts Blacklock take over the Sunday lunch spot with pre and post-cricket sittings at their signature Sunday roast, featuring lashings of gravy and their generous ‘say when’ approach to portion control.

Sell-out comedy and dining fusion Mam Sham present three courses inspired by three comedy acts, with Baby Lame, Crybabies and Sukh Ojla heading up the programme. There’s delicious mischief with a heavy side of debauchery, with Robin Gill at the helm of his Bloodshot Supperclub, chef and Dr Sting’s Hot Honey co-founder Ben Lippett curates an evening of music and food with Kit Sebastian and Everybody Loves to Boogie and Social Pantry bring their Social Supper, with guest chefs partnered with prison leavers to deliver a course each. We all know the best parties happen in the kitchen.

Neighbourhood restaurant and wine bar Carousel return with a dizzyingly impressive menu of seasonal snacks, small plates and banging wine - all to enjoy in-house or takeaway. If that wasn’t enough, their workshop series return, with the likes of The Hungover Cocktail Class, Vermouth Tasting, A Fortified Affair and much more… To start the weekend, guests can indulge in a Saké Tasting session from International Wine Challenge Saké Judge Erika Haigh.

Elsewhere, you’ll find The Cat’s Whiskers Cocktail and Cabaret Club presented by Wonderment, returning to deliver you an hour from the creme de la creme of the world’s cabaret, burlesque, and circus scene in an exquisite pavilion dripping with vintage style. Each of the three acts is paired with an intoxicating blend from the in-house mixologist.

For the first time at Wilderness, headline partner Audi presents The Audi Kitchen - an intimate fine-dining space within the buzz of the festival. Audi ambassador and Michelin star Chef Rohit Ghai has designed a bespoke three-course banquet exclusively for the occasion, taking inspiration from the vibrancy of Wilderness and the beauty of its setting. Hunter Gather Cook will be facilitating your creation of a Crayfish and Venison supper with wild cocktails and workshops. Join Nick Weston in the woods for Crayfish Trapping, Deer Butchery and Foraging.

Occurring daily in the festival’s capital of calm The Sanctuary, you’ll find The Yoga Brunch and Supperclub - the event harnessing the killer combo of yoga and food with a 60-minute Vinyasa Flow followed by an abundant sustainable feast for 50 people.

Resident bookshop Phlox Books host Reading Between the Wines, a masterclass with owner Aimee Madill and expert sommelier Bert Blaize uncovering the perfect wine and book combinations. A Jack Kerouac with a dry Gassac anyone?

As ever, it’s all for you.

Best love and all the trimmings,

Wilderness HQ x