For food’s sake: ‘Biggest’ food festival comes to Lahore

Three-day Eat Lahore festival to start from Friday

LAHORE:

After captivating Karachi, the biggest food festival is now coming to Lahore. The event is being organised by Chapra Khan Omari Events (CKO) in collaboration with Latitude PR.

“We have over 60 stalls, both from big restaurants and smaller businesses,” said Ali Chaudhry, from Latitude PR. He said that these restaurants included Cosa Nostra, Pantry, Sweet Affairs, Lahore Social and The Café Upstairs. “Visitors to the festival will have a wide variety of options to choose from,” he said.

The three-day festival will start at 4pm on Friday and continue till 11pm in Racecourse (Jillani Park). “On Saturday and Sunday it will start at 12pm and continue till 11pm. We are expecting around 10,000 people every day,” he said. Chaudhry said the festival had already generated excitement among Lahoris.

“This has become the biggest food festival in the country,” said Chaudhry referring to the event in Karachi. He said almost 60,000 people had attended the three-day festival there. “We are not expecting that big a crowd here though,” he said.

The entrance ticket will be for Rs200. Every item offered at the stalls will cost upto Rs300. “The festival is for families only. So the organisers have arranged activities for both children and adults. We have jumping castles and some rides for children and will also have musical performances in the evening,” Chaudhry said. He said throughout the day, anyone from the visitors could perform on stage.

“It is all about food and we all know that no one can beat Lahoris at that,” said Ahmed Masood, a student. He said he would be going with some friends from college to the festival. He said he was surprised that the organisers had not brought the festival to Lahore sooner.

Insia Ahmad said she would be visiting the festival with her children and husband. “We are glad it is an outdoor event which the whole family can enjoy. It is always a little difficult to take young children to restaurants and other events in closed spaces,” she said. She said it was also encouraging that children below the ages of three would be charged an entrance ticket.

To reduce the parking hassle, the organisers have partnered with Careem, a car rental service, to take visitors from their homes to the venue. Sarah Tariq Gilani, who plans to visit the festival over the weekend, said this was a huge relief for her. “Finding a parking spot at events like this is always a hassle. This is definitely encouraging,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 25^th,  2016.