Chatham Maritime Food and Drink Festival

The Chatham Food and Drink festival was held over the bank holiday weekend and was the fourth free time that it was held. 

It is promoted as a street food market that is packed with excellent local food and drink producers (many of them award-winning). Time to fill your bellies and then relax on the riverside listening to live music.

What else was on?

* Kids' area, face painting and craft sessions to keep the littlies busy. Plus a fun fair and vintage ferris wheel.

* Water sports taster sessions for adults and kids 7+ to try.

* Floating inflatable obstacle course for adults and kids aged 8+ (Saturday 27 May and Monday 29 May)

* Loud, fun and thrilling Dragon Boat racing to cheer on (Sunday 28 May)

* Historic Dunkirk Little Ships and Dutch barges to enjoy (including classical string quartet music from The City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra playing aboard on Saturday 27 May).

The festival is on the riverside at Chatham Maritime and was clearly signposted, with free parking available.

We loved the English Festival, Sweeps and the Dickens festivals so thought that we should pop along and enjoy another fun packed day and not miss out!

There was a selected area with seats and chairs on a green circulating a bandstand.

The bandstand had local acts playing throughout the day. It was nice to see people gathering, eating, drinking and listening to local acts that they might not have heard elsewhere.

Surrounding this area were a selection of different food vans and stalls such as Pork & Co, Just Ribz and Vegan Burger Bar.

Away from here and along the waterfront there were water sports available from late primary aged children including canoeing and an inflatable obstacle course.  

The course did look really fun although I did feel for the poor kids in the freezing cold water!

Whilst we were there we took the opportunity to take a stroll along and check out some of the boats moored up enjoying the sun!

I loved this family barge and the fact they had astroturf and a garden set on top!

On the way back to the car we went via the fairground rides although there were not many there.

I love our area. Medway towns offer many great festivals full of fun for adults and families. Yet, despite the above photos I did feel a little let down from the event.

The drinks companies were fantastic. At each stall you had the option to try and test the drink before you purchased which allowed you time to get to know the people behind the company. For me this is what I expected and wanted at the event; local businesses showing the quality of their product and showing that they have value and presence in our lives alongside big brands.

The food, however, let me down. The pitches and cabins around the main green where the music was playing and a varying array of food on offer from curries, pulled pork, Mexican, Chinese and American but, in my opinion, their aim was to sell food rather than show the quality of the ingredients sourced locally.

There were, of course, small stalls and some of our regular favourites like Joanne's Preserves and homemade fudge that were exceptions to the above.

An example of this would be getting lunch. Each stall offered an array of options to purchase but the majority of them were over £5 for any option! For 3 of us, eating a burger, pot of pulled pork and “meat chips” and it costing £18 was too much. I would have loved the opportunity to try some of the different companies present with mini tasting pots so we could really decide what we wanted rather than going by what we fancied.

The food we did eat was amazing and you could taste the quality of every ingredient but as a family trip out it just didn’t seem viable.

I thought that I might have just been a tad tight and grumpy but a friend who went to the event felt similar:

"There wasn't much there. I was expecting more artisan type stalls doing different breads and cheeses. More stalls doing samples of weird and wonderful things. It was more a row of glorified burger vans. Although the food we had was good we only had one thing as it was more designed for a lunch. I'd have preferred cheaper smaller portions so I could have tried different things. Very spaced out too with the carnival (if u can count 2 soft toy games and carousel basically as a carnival). Disappointed" Erin Day

The food was highly priced and then the options for family activities and fun would have been an additional costing (£3 each for a short time on a bouncy castle for example). I could easily see me spending a full afternoon listening to music, going on the fairground, having 2 meals and enjoying the water activities but spending £80.

The local musicians were lovely but it missed that spark and atmosphere that events like the sweeps or dickens festivals had left me feeling old, grumpy and lighter in my wallet.

I am sure that it would have been great as a day event but only if you had money to spend. I know that there are several similar events around Kent in the following weeks and I would love to know if these are any better. At the moment however I wouldn't be interested in going but would love to hear from anyone who goes to them!