We love catering for all kinds of events, but our sweet spot is feeding the crew and artists backstage at all the greatest music festivals in the UK. Many of the crew chose to eat in the Radish marquee, but we also offer take out – our consumables are all environmentally friendly and biodegradable and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
When we first got the call from IMG, a global leader in sports, fashion and events around the world, asking if we wanted to quote for the backstage artist and crew catering at one of their festivals we were more than a little excited, but once the details emerged that it was for Jamie Oliver and Alex James’s Big Feastival in the beautiful Cotswolds we almost couldn’t contain ourselves in our desire to cook in the same field, never mind feed, some of these uber-talented culinary geniuses and hardworking crew.
It might have taken a couple of months of toing and froing, careful menu planning and countless emails but late yesterday afternoon (in Minsk!) we got the perfect start to the weekend (not that we ever get one of those of course!) when we finally received the email confirming Red Radish had been chosen as the official crew and artist caterer for ‘The 2015 Big Feastival’.
When Jamie and one of his mates decided to get into festivals it was only ever really going to focus on one thing. Food! Food, glorious food (albeit it with great music) and being part of that is all a bit of a dream come true for Red Radish and a pair of PROPER foodies like us.
So picture the scene… Jamie Oliver, the legend that is Raymond Blanc, Masterchef’s Monica Galetti, Ashley Palmer-Watts, the executive head chef for the Fat Duck group (Yes THAT FAT DUCK!!!) and a host of other wonderful chefs and foodies with delicious ingredients all cooking up a storm on the same beautiful idyllic farm as Red Radish and our very own team of extremely talented chefs.
Some might say that the pressure is well and truly on with this one, but we love a bit of that anyway and literally can’t wait to get cooking for ’em all!
Despite being on a twenty hour ferry crossing between Arena tour catering gigs in Rotterdam and Norway, the wonders of satellite communications means we have just received a great email letting us know that Red Radish has today been confirmed as the back-stage crew and artist caterer for SECRET GARDEN PARTY 2015. The devil is always in the detail (and these guys certainly plan well) so it is no surprise that is has taken a couple of months of meetings, negotiations and going back and forth with menus before we finally got today’s decision.
As a “VERY SERIOUS CATERING COMPANY” we are really pleased to be involved in what Secret Garden Bill as “A SERIOUS PARTY” and we literally can’t wait to spend the last two weeks of July catering for everyone at this exciting festival in their super-beautiful Cambridgeshire location.
The festival kicks off on Thursday 23rd July and finishes on Sunday 26th July. The venue is Mill Hill Field, Abbots Ripton, Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire and if you aren’t lucky enough to have a ticket, but have serious hospitality, desire or chef skills then drop us a line with your CV because we will soon be recruiting festival staff for this and a whole host of exciting other summer festivals. – [email protected]
We are delighted to have just been re-booked for this year’s crew and artist catering for the 2015 Mama Group Festivals. Last year was our first at Wilderness, Global Gathering, Lovebox and the exciting new Somersault Festival. Our journey with Mama saw our crew and catering trucks travel from one of Inner London’s most wonderful parks, down to the glorious Cotswolds and on to the beautiful wilds of Devon, and it has to be said that we loved every minute. Having won the contract from their existing catering company Eatopia back in the spring of 2014, it was great to know such an established festival company were so pleased with our service and crew food that they did not even bother asking anyone else to quote for their catering this year. We reckon you can’t get much more of an accolade than that. Our hardworking team are all delighted and absolutely can’t wait to cater for their lovely crew again this summer. – Email [email protected] or call 07532 427033 if we can help you!
We have to admit that (maybe because of our age!) The Wilderness Festival at Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire was quite possibly the 2014 crew-catering gig that we were looking forward to the most. Production catering at Glastonbury’s Shangri-La plus Lovebox, Global Gathering, and about a dozen others had been great, but there is only so much bass our ears can take these days and to be on location in such a tranquil setting was a real treat.
Wilderness had been billed as bit of a Poshstock for food lovers and whilst we are definitely not posh we are generally always prepared to walk over hot-coals for a good bit of grub! That coupled with some great grown-up music meant it was definitely one for us and it certainly did not disappoint on any level. It was our last festival of new series of four from new supplier Mama and Co and we were determined to go out with a bang after the success of Lovebox, Global Gathering and newbie festival Somersault down in Devon. Mama had been great to work with, so to end up in such a beautiful setting catering for the likes of stars such as Gregory Porter and Burt Baccarat (photographed below with Lucy Brown) made it a bit of a dream job.
Over the years we have been lucky enough to cook for a huge list celebs across a massive spectrum of legends including the likes of Sir Cliff Richard, The Beach Boys and Liza Minnelli through to Hollywood superstars including Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth and Robert Redford, and then more current heroes like Nas and David Guetta. In fact, you would never quite believe what we have seen on some of our more demanding artistic dressing room riders but being at Wilderness was definitely one of our special memories of a wonderful summer and one that we can’t wait to repeat in 2015!
After just two years crew and artist catering at Glastonbury the crew and chefs of Red Radish are proud to say that we feel like part of the Shangri-La furniture and can’t wait to get back for hat-trick of festivals in 2015. Here is what one of the key creators had to say about our catering and general performance….
‘A Big shout out to Wayne and Louise from Red Radish, our first crew caterers EVER (and we are talking right the way back to Vagueness here) not to break on site. Must be due to their enormous warmth and big heartedness – they have generosity of spirit par excellence. Plus the food was really nice. And the coffee. And the banter. BIG THANKS to all their lovely and quite fit crew too, who took care of our motley family of misfits in great style. See you next year we hope xxx’
Some would say that there are possibly easier places to cut your festival catering ‘teeth’ than Glastonbury’s infamous Shangri-La. In fact, no caterer has ever returned and many have literally sunk head-first into the infamous Somerset mud along the way. Robin Collings from Shangri-La first contacted us back in 2012 and explained how he had heard good things about Red Radish from the guys at Block9 who we had catered for on a couple of events on-off festivals. Robin explained how they were looking for crew and artist catering over a month long period. Numbers would be around 500 per service and they wanted a good Full-English breakfast option followed by some great lunch and dinner choices. Queues had to be kept to a minimum and the food needed to be hearty and substantial as their production team worked incredibly hard, especially during the build and the break.
Red Radish needed to supply a complete field-kitchen including everything from the ovens through to the knives and forks and even the kitchen-sink(s)! They were obviously worried after the problems they had suffered with catering companies in the past, but our organised approach and excellent references gave them the confidence to award us the gig for 2013 and guess what?…….. We went back in 2014 as well. In Debs Armstrong’s very own words Red Radish were the first crew catering company EVER to not break on site!
Early 2014 saw an enquiry from the prestigious festival organiser Mama and Co who were looking at the possibility moving their current crew and artist catering away from established tour caterer Eatopia. Mama are one of the biggest names in the business with years of event industry experience and a host of big name festivals under their belt it was an exciting email to say the least. Our initial discussions focused on Wilderness, Lovebox, Global Gathering and a brand new and exciting Devon festival called Somersault.
At the time of the enquiry Red Radish were living the dream providing the crew and production food for the world famous Cirque du Soleil at London’s Royal Albert Hall. After initial emails and costs, a tasting was arranged at this iconic venue. The production team from Mama had initially suggested that they wanted to try us out on one or two of their gigs first and that they would be nervous giving us all four festivals at once, but our food and our approach must have been spot on because a month or so later Red Radish were confirmed on all four festivals, including Somersault and Lovebox which ran at the same time. How’s that for confidence!
If your looking for a quick and competitive quote then give us a call on +44 7532 427033
Almost definitely one of our most sedate crew and guest catering events, but certainly one of the biggest and most challenging productions took us down to Sussex and Focus 2014, a Christian festival organised by Holy Trinity Brompton in London. The production was enormous and with over 20,000 meals to cook in less than seven days, our team of chefs managed to keep smiling even though they certainly had their work cut out.
The event was spread over the sprawling UK holiday park Pontins and saw Red Radish cooking up our delicious, freshly cooked food across three different marquees plus a VIP area and all-day backstage, green-room for artists, senior ministers and the main-man himself, Holy Trinity Vicar Nicky Gumbel.
There has been a huge increase in religious festivals over the last five years, although one of the biggest events, Greenbelt (an arts, faith and justice festival) has been going since 1974 and has organised an impressive 40 consecutive festivals without a break. It is certainly a growth market and one that we totally enjoyed being part of.
It was a heavily scheduled festival with participants and speakers having very defined windows of time in which they could stop for their lunch or dinner, meaning timing was everything and the artists, crew and production really needed to be looked after. As well as the usual hot-food options, there were also BBQ’s and packed lunches which the Red Radish chefs and production crew worked buzzing all over the site in our buggies and working around the clock to have everything ready for the very early morning festival starts.
I just wanted to say a massive thank you for catering for our party during Lions Festival in Cannes. It was a HUGE success.
Your team were so lovely, the food was amazing – we got tonnes of compliments and most importantly we didn’t lose our villa rental deposit for the first year ever… haha!
Finger Music Party Cannes 2013 from Finger Music on Vimeo.
Have a great summer… I imagine you’re heading to the Cote d’Azur but if you happen to find yourselves in Ibiza in August then I’ll shout you a vodka limon!
Bianca Piper
FINGER MUSIC – London | New York | Los Angeles
