The perfect early summer weather brought food lovers in their tens of thousands to the International Food Market of the tenth annual Christchurch Food & Wine Festival.

The sunshine on both Saturday and Sunday proved ideal conditions for people to browse the stalls selling a huge variety of food and drink and to visit the Rangemaster Cookery Theatre for demonstrations from celebrity and local chefs.

The Festival got off to a great start on Friday with the final of the Junior Cook of the Year competition, when four finalists from Twynham, The Grange and Highcliffe Schools showed their culinary prowess. They had to cook a dish in front of an audience and judges Lesley Waters, Tim Lloyd from the Captain’s Club and Vee Young, President of Christchurch Rotary Club, the sponsors of the competition.

The winner was Ashley Best from The Grange School who cooked seared tuna with asparagus and oven baked chips. Louis Despres from Twynham School came second with Sam Wiles from Highcliffe School and Jack Thorpe from Twynham School the runners up.

The final of the primary schools competition to design a representation of a healthy meal on a plate was won jointly by George Hall from Burton School and Tom Haines from The Priory School. Katie French from The Priory School came second with Ruby Waltham from Mudeford Junior School in third place.

The International Market over the weekend attracted more visitors than ever before. The opening ceremony was compered by Matt Hopper from The Coast FM who introduced The Mayor, Cllr David Flagg and celebrity chefs Lesley Waters and Gary Rhodes.

Both Lesley and Gary did cookery demonstrations which were packed out, as were the entertaining demonstrations by Chris and James Tanner on Sunday. The line-up of demonstrations also included Mark Mussell from The Old Vicarage, Mr Poon from The Rising Sun, Lak and Alison Ferhi from The Tempest, Paul Putt from Splinters, Ian Hewitt from The Ship in Distress and Simon Hallam from The Crooked Beam.

One of the more unusual demonstrations was by the cocktail barmen from The Captain’s Club who organised a ‘Bar Wars’ competition between a team of men and a team of women who had to reproduce cocktails which they had been shown by the barmen. The overall winner was Laura Ecclestone.

Youngsters got a chance to try their hand at making food both in Ester’s Kids Kitchen in Druitt Hall run by nutritionist Ester Davies as well as the pasta making workshops in The Clay Studio headed by Liz Farrow from Bournemouth & Poole College.

The Festival’s President, Mary Reader, said: “The Festival really goes from strength to strength and this year was the busiest yet. We had an excellent programme of cookery demonstrations and the market had the most interesting selection of food and drink that we’ve ever had.

“I’m really grateful to all of the volunteers and all of our sponsors who helped to make the weekend such a success. Of course the Festival isn’t over yet as it continues in restaurants, cafes, pubs and tea shops right through this week until next Sunday so I hope people will take advantage of this and visit some of our local businesses.

“I’m sure that the Festival does a lot of good for Christchurch and I believe it has contributed to Christchurch being one of the best towns for good food in the South.”