The Deliziando Italia Food Festival

What’s not to love about Italian food,eh? It’s definitely up there as one of my favourite cuisines – I like its simplicity and the use of top quality ingredients. This was highlighted beautifully at the pre-event for the Deliziando Italia Food Festival held in the very lavish Meliá White House Hotel, which I was recently invited to. The focus of the festival was to showcase the produce from the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy, the home of Parmigiano Reggiano and balsamic vinegar.

There I got to taste some fantastic, quality produce: Parma ham, salami, mortadella, proscuitto and was given the chance to make some Piadinas, these are thin Italian flatbreads filled with ham and cheese. I made mine with Parma ham and Parmigiano Reggiano – and very good it was too. A couple of the other guests made a risotto – you can see more cooking goings on here.

The tasting didn’t stop there. To follow was a sit down meal to two of Italy’s classic dishes: Osso Buco and Tiramisu. As you can imagine we were all pretty stuffed at this point, but that wasn’t going to stop me from trying these. I’ve never had Osso Buco (veal stew) before, so that was the one that I was most excited to try. The hotel chef was a bit heavy-handed with the rocket, but I easily put that aside to devour the tender, flavoursome slow cooked veal shins. The Tiramisu was as pretty as a picture and tasted great.

We were royally looked after by the charismatic, attentive and passionate staff who were on hand to talk us through the produce, and where Prosecco and other fine wine flowed freely.

The Delizando Italia Food Festival is a great insight into the excellent produce coming out of Northern Italy. There’s still time to catch the festival as it ends Sunday 28th October: Meliá White House hotel, Albany Street, Regents Park, London, NW1 3UP.

Many thanks to Deliziando Italia for the invite.