London Restaurant Festival unveils its plans for 2010

Plans for the 2010 London Restaurant Festival were unveiled to celebrity chefs, restauranteurs and food critics at The Club at The Ivy this evening (13 April). As this two-week festival is my new Events for London project, I was also in attendance, drinking Mumm champagne in amongst the throngs of foodies and quickly realising that, apart from Ramsay, I wouldn't know a celebrity chef even if he started a food fight.

What I can tell you however, is that The Club at The Ivy is incredibly swanky. Oh and I can also give you the low-down on this, the second outing of an event, created in 2009 by restaurant critic Fay Maschler and her business partner Simon Davis (along with Visit London and Single Market Events).

So, this year’s festival, which runs across the capital from 4-18 October, will be held in partnership with American Express. Festival menus will be rolled out across an anticipated 800 different restaurants across the capital, enabling visitors to dine out for as little as £10.

As well as the Festival Menus initiative, supported by official booking partner toptable.com, five major events were revealed at the launch, planned to run across the fortnight.

Covent Garden’s Piazza will be transformed into The London Restaurant Festival Supplier’s Market and will see a range of famous restaurants showcase their produce, cooking techniques and flair via live demonstrations (you'll also be able to buy stuff).

Returning for a second year and extended into Shoreditch and Soho, The London Restaurant Festival Gourmet Odyssey will see diners travel across the capital to sample a different course from one of three chosen venues. The Merlin Entertainments London Eye will turn one of its pods into a ten-seater ‘pop-up’ restaurant, hosted each night by a celebrated chef. The London Restaurant Festival Big Food Quiz will offer foodie-fanatics a chance to test their knowledge during a three-course meal at a top London eatery. And The London Restaurant Festival Awards will form the grand finale and take place on the 18 October. The awards are exclusively open to participating restaurants and will be largely focused towards highlighting the best Festival Menus of 2010.

According to the organisers, more than 350 restaurants have already pre-registered to take part in the event. To achieve the target of 800, restaurants and chefs are invited to pre-register at www.londonrestaurantfestival.com.

And there you have it. I will no doubt be blogging more updates as and when I know them but if you'd like to follow my London Restaurant Festival Twitter feed, find me at twitter.com/LRF2010

PS - London Restaurant Festival tickets go on sale at the end of June.