LitFest 2017 - Tickets on Sale Today

So here we are, 2017! Happy New Year!

Can you believe it, this year marks our fifth LitFest and we are delighted to announce that the festival is now officially called the Ballymaloe Food and Drinks Literacy Festival. 

It's still LitFest, but the ‘lit’ in the title now refers more generally to food and drinks literacy. There will be a little less about books and a lot more about the impact of our food choices on our health, our environment, our wellbeing, our economy. 

It runs Friday 19th to Sunday 21st May and tickets go on sale today.

The Grainstore will once again serve as an exciting auditorium becoming the symposium centre and the beating heart of the festival. Over the weekend, the symposium at Litfest 2017 will stage a thought-provoking and inspiring series of short talks and presentations from both the published and not yet published. Gathering an interesting and dynamic pool of professionals, writers, experts and authorities from at home and around the world, the festival will focus minds and thoughts on the question of responsibility – our responsibility as cooks and eaters.

The LitFest 2017 symposium is designed to spark imagination and generate discussion, prompting attendees to recognise their individual role as a crucial link in the food chain. Every time we cook something we have a responsibility – a responsibility to the people we are cooking for and the people who produced the food we are cooking. We have a responsibility to the environment and to the planet, and each choice, every action has its own impact. This crucial conversation, led by some of the most thought-provoking and dynamic writers and thinkers about food of our generation, will be passionate, factual and inspiring and is a must visit for all food-lovers to this year’s festival.

This year's speakers and guest chefs include:

• Brian McGinn, director of the Emmy-winning Netflix documentary series Chef’s Table
• Slovenian chef Ana Roš of Hiša Franko in Kobarid
• Jacob Kennedy, chef patron of Italian restaurants Bocca di Lupo in Soho and Vico 
• And making a welcome return visit to LitFest 2017 is Claudia Roden, beloved Middle Eastern cookbook writer and cultural anthropologist
• This year's pop up restaurants will be run by British chef, caterer, and cookery writer Margot Henderson and Dublin-born Robin Gill whose string of innovative and exciting London restaurants – The Dairy, The Manor and Paradise Garage – has made him one of the hottest chefs in London

Tickets go on sale today, so be sure to head on over to the website right now, as many sell out within hours. The full schedule of participants and events  www.litfest.ie