Dann and I love trying new food and food festivals. A work friend of mine, from a job we both freelance at, has been talking for over a year now about how both her and myself need to try oysters. This has become a bit of a thing, but as we don’t live near each other, we just haven’t sorted out the time. Until she started talking about Taste of Eataly, which allows you to try a bunch of different food, including oysters.
If you’ve never been to Eataly in London, it’s basically a big casual food joint, with a lot of packaged foods for sale. There are different areas that you can pick up sandwiches, pizzas, fish, and produce from – allowing you to stop in for a bite to eat or to do some fancy shopping. Everything is very much Italian and there is everything you could ever imagine, if I am honest. We even spotted some pesto flavored potato chips (crisps, if you are British). Taste of Eataly is a fantastic way to experience the place, as this is a festival that takes place twice a year.
We went to the Taste of Eataly Summer Edition (the one in the Winter is different, with different things to taste), and both Dann and I got the 10 ticket deal. Basically, you can purchase entry plus some tickets before the day. The 10 ticket bundle is the best savings, but if we are both honest, we could have done with just 7 tickets as the samples themselves were SO big. Entry also got you a very nice wine glass in a carrier, so that you could wear it around your neck. Almost everything cost one ticket, with two dishes total costing two. Taste of Eataly is huge, covering two floors, but my favorite was the bottom floor. You do get a booklet that works as a map and says all of the different foods, which is fantastic for planning! There are also these little flags that tell you what number you are at on the map and show the menu – it’s all very well organised.
We started there, with our friend group, getting cocktails to start. They gave us samples of the different liquor, before we got one each, and then went straight for the pasta. I got the rigatoni with ‘nduja, which was spicy and well cooked – Dann got the vegan pesto pasta, which had such a good basil flavor! Following the pesto, we both tried two of the pizzas, which was such a generous slice. I do think this pizza was my favorite savory – I had the pesto and buffalo mozzarella, while Dann tried the pancetta with pea cream and mozzarella. I found the pea cream to be a little thick on this, but still the dough on both was so fluffy. We sat down for a bit, before going for some fried food.
In the chef’s special area, which also had live music playing, we got tons of the different dishes. The first being a very parm cheese heavy risotto, which wasn’t for me, before trying some deep-fried spaghetti (two blocks per ticket), which very much needed a dip. We also got a tray of parm to try, which was intense and a serving of risotto balls, which again was two. It was a lot of food! Together, we all did try oysters, which was quite the experience! I am not sure if I would do them again (we got two per ticket), but it was neat. There was a sort of pickled onion dressing on the top and everything. We also went for dessert, getting the best cannoli I have ever had (the original, though the pistachio was good as well, and you got both for one ticket), along with a tiramisu and two scoups of sorbet. We all were very much stuffed before all of our tickets ran out! There was a stand that did wrapped cheese, meat and bread trays – which we grabbed as a snack for at home.
We all had such a lovely time at Taste of Eataly, which is a fantastic way to get to try loads of food and really experience Eataly. I do think Dann and I will be back, as we very much had passed this place before but had never given it a go.
You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!