MORE than 30,000 visitors flocked to Abergavenny this weekend for the town’s annual food festival.

Over the weekend thousands of hungry visitors rubbed shoulders with world class chefs, joining in with tasting sessions, private cookery classes and sampling the delights of more than 250 stallholders.

On Friday, festivities were kicked off with a Masterclass from headliner Monica Galetti talking exclusively about her new book The Skills. Nick Strangeway provided the perfect opening night accompaniment with elegant gin cocktails using Moorland Spirit co. gins and the party continued late into the night with the Friday street food supper party.

The Festival opened fully on Saturday with hugely successful headline events including Cyrus Todiwala and José Pizarro and the sunny streets had an incredible energy throughout the day, bustling with visitors and vendors. Other highlights included Artisan Kitchen School classes with Eleonora Galasso and Great British Bake Off’s Richard Burr.

Highlights of Sunday included The Lockhart London’s Brad McDonald, sold out Bar 44 restauranteur Owen Morgan’s delicious selection of Spanish hams and Zuza Zak’s amazing contemporary Polish feast. Simi Rezai-Ghassemi wowed with her traditional Persian recipes and there were drinks aplenty from James Morton’s new book Brew and Richard and Joy Morris’ Ancre Hill Vineyard wine tasting.

And if the line-up wasn’t high profile enough, there were a few famous faces spotted in the crowds over the weekend including Professor Stephen Hawking, cookery legend Pru Leith and Bake Off rising star Candice Brown.

Heather Myers, Chief Executive of the Festival added, “It’s always amazing to see the Festival come alive after so many months of hard work.

“As always, none of this would be possible without the hard work and talent of all the chefs and professionals involved and the enthusiasm of the thousands that came to join us. We hope you had as fantastic a time as we did.