Audi presents Wilderness has announced its full feasting lineup for 2024 in all its mouth-watering glory.
Headline chefs this year include the immensely talented and multi-starred wonder Claude Bosi, award-winning Darjeeling Express founder Asma Khan, Irish favourite and triple Great British Menu winner Richard Corrigan and trailblazing chef and broadcaster of the hour Andi Oliver. At no other festival will you find such vibrant gastronomic delights. Having already announced a stellar arts and music programme (including headliners Michael Kiwanuka, Faithless, Bicep and Jessie Ware), the globally-revered culinary programme now takes centre stage.
Over the past twelve years, Wilderness has cemented its impeccable reputation for creating unique dining experiences featuring Michelin-starred heavyweights, internationally renowned chefs, landmark restaurants, homegrown favourites and the rising stars of the food scene. A haven for food enthusiasts, Wilderness pioneered the concept of festival fine dining and continues to push boundaries, remaining unparalleled in quality, scale and ambition. From culinary collaborations to forest feasts beneath the Wychwood canopy, epicurean pleasures await around every corner.
For the standout Long Table Banquets this year, all four headline chefs will be making their debut. With magnetic personas as notable as their world-class food, diners will be enraptured, as well as satiated. Double-Michelin-starred French chef Claude Bosi is renowned for having won two Michelin stars an incredible three times with different restaurants. His iconic double-starred Bibendum in Michelin House, Brooklands (two stars in the 2024 Michelin list), where he is Chef Director and his first and Ludlow-based restaurant, Hibiscus. Earlier this year, he opened a restaurant, in partnership with his wife Lucy, paying homage to his Lyonnaise heritage: Josephine is less a restaurant and more a relaxed French bistro.
Read more: Wilderness announces first wave of headliners for 2024 festival
Asma Khan is an award-winning restaurateur, best-selling cookbook author, UN World Food Programme’s Chef Advocate, the first British chef to be profiled on Netflix’s Emmy-nominated Chef’s Table, and the first chef to be featured on Vogue’s list of 25 most influential women. Hailing from Calcutta, Asma is the founder of London’s famed Darjeeling Express, where an all-female team of immigrant women forms the backbone of her kitchen. Her banquet will be inspired by the way Indian food is meant to be eaten – platters of dishes boasting texture and flavours which complement each other, encouraging you to gather and share in the style of the traditional ‘daawat’ (feast).
Irish chef Richard Corrigan’s career spans over thirty years and multiple countries, with five venues currently running across London and Ireland. He’s cooked for the Queen and Barack Obama, won the Great British Menu three times, and written two recipe books. A supporter of British and Irish produce, his feast will pay homage to his roots with a Daffodil Mulligan-inspired offering. Diners can expect a signature blend of exquisite food, Irish hospitality and great craic – soundtracked with a proper Irish knees-up.
Andi Oliver is a trailblazing chef, broadcaster, cookbook author and current presenter of the Great British Menu. Andi has hosted Channel 4’s Beat The Chef, Food Unwrapped and is a contributing chef and host on Saturday Kitchen. She is a regular panel member on BBC Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet alongside Jay Rayner as well as a contributor to Radio 4’s Award winning The Food Programme. 2023 saw the long-awaited launch of her cookbook ‘The Pepperpot Diaries: Stories From My Caribbean Table’ which features both traditional and new recipes, cherished ingredients and vibrant flavours from across the Caribbean – which is what diners at her Long Table Banquet debut can expect.
Perched on a hillside overlooking the glistening waters of Lake Wilderness, The Chef’s Table is the jewel in the feasting crown. A handful of diners sit around the counter, sipping fine wine and chatting to the masterminds behind the seven-course feast. This year, chef and owner of the Two-Michelin-starred restaurant Da Terra, Rafael Cagali, makes his Wilderness debut. Rafael cut his teeth at The Fat Duck – where he met his husband and now general manager at Da Terra, Charlie Lee. Under Charlie’s management, Da Terra is an expression of Rafael’s roots, paying homage to Brazil with Italian influences.
Joining Rafael for a Wilderness first are Josh Angus – executive chef at Michelin-starred London hotspot Hide and former chef at Raymond Blanc’s iconic Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire – and Michelin green star holder Nolla. Nolla means ‘Zero’, and the Helsinki-based restaurant has a zero-waste ethos, which means they don’t accept packaging from their suppliers, their uniforms are made from discarded bed linen, and they have their own composter and microbrewery.
Rounding out this exceptional cast, multi-award-winning chef and owner of Mayfair’s Apricity (Michelin Green Star), Chantelle Nicholson, returns to Wilderness for her first appearance at The Chef’s Table. Apricity celebrates conscious cooking and joyful dining, and Chantelle is an advocate for seasonality, circularity and regenerative restaurants.
The Wilderness Kitchen returns, completely reimagined for its fourth year. By day, a brunch and lunch hotspot; by night, you’ll find a dynamic and vibrant dining and performance space with music, comedy and much more. Brunch aficionados Caravan deliver a signature Bloody Mary brunch and lunch on Friday and Saturday, while London chop house experts Blacklock take over the Sunday lunch spot with pre and post-cricket sittings at their signature Sunday roast, featuring lashings of gravy and their generous ‘say when’ approach to portion control.
By night, the venue transforms, with guest supper clubs that celebrate an idea central to the very ethos of Wilderness – its continual boundary-pushing dedication to interweaving narratives. With each supper club curated to explore foods’ synergetic relationship to the other pillars that form the very core of the show, guests can expect to be transported into a nightly changing world – hosted by some of the most exciting talents of the modern food world.
Mam Sham is the formidable London-based female duo who combine headline comedy and food at their sell-out supper clubs to deliver “good grub, LOLS and excellence”. For Wilderness, they present three courses inspired by three comedy acts, with Baby Lame, Crybabies and Sukh Ojla heading up the programme.
Chef, food writer, and co-founder of Dr Sting’s Hot Honey, Ben Lippett, curates an evening of music and food with a one-off live set from pop-duo Kit Sebastian and Everybody Loves to Boogie, bringing the good vibes to the start and end of the evening. The menu will be curated to lean into the influences of the featured music, celebrating the symbiotic possibilities for music and dining to bring people together in a moment of communal joy and discovery.
Long-standing Wilderness partners Social Pantry bring their Social Supper for its Wilderness debut – a concept kick-started in 2018, allowing prison leavers to get kitchen experience whilst working alongside inspiring industry leaders. Alex Head, CEO and Founder of Social Pantry, and Head Development Chef, Sarah Turner, will be joined by star chefs Mike Davies, Chef Director of The Camberwell Arms, Patrick Williams, Co-founder of Kudu, and more to be announced. All will be partnered with ex-offenders to deliver a course each at the supper club, making positive change. Through Social Pantry’s ground-breaking work with prison leavers since 2015, it now has a brilliant team composed of 10% prison leavers.
Last but by no means least, London’s wildest food-focused soiree, the theatrical Bloodshot Supperclub, returns, ready to make some seriously delicious mischief with Robin Gill at the helm of a handpicked lineup of superstar chefs. The infamous supper club was formulated by Robin Gill and Nuno Mendes (Chiltern Firehouse) following lunch at The Dairy, where the two chefs agreed that for a capital city with London’s reputation, something was lacking when it came to choice for the hardworking restaurant and food industry employees. Bloodshot is the ultimate late-night soiree and the perfect end to a weekend of debauchery. Bring your dancing shoes and an open mind…
Returning for a second year, critically acclaimed neighbourhood restaurant and wine bar Carousel – which turns 10 this year – expands on its 2023 takeaway offering. With co-founder Ollie Templeton heading up the kitchen, their new venue will offer a relaxing space to sit in and enjoy a glass of wine alongside their weekend-long takeaway menu of crowd-pleasing seasonal snacks and small plates. As well as a weekend-long series of their sell-out daytime workshops, including Pickling Like a Boss, Salvage your Cocktail Cabinet, The Hungover Cocktail Class, Leftovers to Showstoppers: Zero Waste Workshop, and Vermouth Tasting: A Fortified Affair. To start the weekend, guests can indulge in a Saké Tasting session from International Wine Challenge Saké Judge Erika Haigh.
Ben Quinn and the Woodfired Canteen team will again be cooking up a storm over a live fire under the chandelier bedecked woodland canopy of the Wychwood Forest at his iconic and utterly magical Long Table in the Woods. Join the musical procession, leaving the hustle and bustle of the festival behind to find your seat at the table. With sittings across the entire weekend from Friday to Sunday, diners can enjoy a long, lingering lunch in the sun-dappled glade.
For the first time at Wilderness, headline partner Audi presents The Audi Kitchen – an intimate fine-dining space within the buzz of the festival. Audi ambassador and Michelin star Chef Rohit Ghai has designed a bespoke three-course banquet exclusively for the occasion, taking inspiration from the vibrancy of Wilderness and the beauty of its setting. Chef Ghai epitomises culinary excellence with his mastery of flavours and innovative approach. Hailing from India, Chef Ghai’s culinary journey has taken him to prestigious kitchens worldwide, earning him critical acclaim, awards and much-coveted Michelin stars. Ticket holders will be able to win a seat at the table by entering prize draws to be announced on Audi and Wilderness’ social channels in the coming months.
Housed in an exquisite pavilion dripping with vintage style, The Cat’s Whiskers Cocktail and Cabaret Club presented by Wonderment returns, delivering you an hour from the creme de la creme of the world’s cabaret, burlesque and circus scene. Each of the three acts is paired with an intoxicating blend from the in-house mixologist. For this hour, around dimly lit round tables, hearts will be won, stopped and melted.
Occurring daily in the festival’s capital of calm, The Sanctuary, you’ll find The Yoga Brunch and Supperclub – the event harnessing the killer combo of yoga and food with a 60-minute Vinyasa Flow followed by an abundant sustainable feast for 50 people.
Hunter Gather Cook is the foraging, butchery and fire cookery school who’ve been holding classes in the wild of Wilderness for nearly a decade. Designed by Nick Weston as a way to educate people about the wild, to get more people to eat game, learn about the delicious wild food we have all around us and blend both together with the delicate goodness of smoke and fire. Join Nick in the woods for Crayfish Trapping, Deer Butchery and Foraging, followed by wild cocktails and canapes.
Resident bookshop Phlox Books hosts Reading Between the Wines. Owner and experienced bookseller Aimée Madill teams with sommelier extraordinaire Bert Blaize to find the perfect wine and book combinations. A Jack Kerouac with a dry Gassac anyone? Phlox Books is located in East London and for the past seven years has been fulfilling its mantra of “Books.Booze.Coffee.”
In addition to the multitude of restaurants and culinary experiences, the fields of Wilderness are populated by numerous carefully chosen street food offerings from across the globe. Late-night snacks, full-blown brunches, lunches and hot dinners. You’ll find delicious drinks: juices and smoothies, chai and coffee shops, cocktails and craft beers. There are sweet treats galore and nutritious kiddie delights. Whatever your heart and appetite desires, Wilderness will provide.
Tickets for Wilderness 2024 are now on sale. Bookings for feasting experiences will open at 10.00am on Thursday, 25 April.
