Television superstar and award-winning chef Jean-Christophe Novelli will be gracing Yorkshire with his presence as one of the celebrity chefs at the Halifax Food and Drink Festival. The Bill & Val Rooney Fund and the Gartland Family Trust managed by the Community Foundation for Calderdale has supported his appearance. The festival which is being delivered by Marketing Halifax is being held in association with Halifax Bank and will take place next month at The Piece Hall in Halifax town centre from Friday 16th September – Sunday 18th September.

Jean-Christophe Novelli who is dubbed “the nation’s favourite French chef” has accumulated no less than four consecutive Michelin stars during his career and created exquisite dishes for celebrity stars such as Richard Branson and David Beckham to name a few.

He has also appeared on a wide variety of the UK’s most popular cookery programmes including Saturday Cooks, Hell’s Kitchen and Richard and Judy’s Tender Loving Cooking. Now Jean-Christophe is bringing his kitchen skills and culinary flair to the festival’s cookery theatre, to whip up a treat for Halifax Food and Drink Festival visitors with his selection of mouth-watering recipes and inspiring cookery demonstrations.

Jean-Christophe Novelli said: “I am extremely excited to be a part of the Halifax Food and Drink Festival. It is going to be a fantastic event for food and drink lovers everywhere and I hope people take advantage of this opportunity to come to this wonderful town and sample some of the high quality local produce that Halifax and the Yorkshire region are famed for.”
Last year more than 17,000 people came to the Halifax Food and Drink Festival and organisers Marketing Halifax expect the 2011 event to be the biggest yet, having extended the festival to now take place across three days rather than two.

Michay Matthews, Marketing, Events and Membership Manager at Marketing Halifax said: “We are absolutely thrilled to have attracted such a high profile chef like Jean-Christophe Novelli to the festival and hope that this demonstrates the calibre of the event we’re organising this year. Jean-Christophe is going to be a real treat for festival visitors and we are confident that this will create an unrivalled food festival atmosphere for all the businesses that take part and the huge crowds of visitors that attend.”

Showcasing the best food and drink the region has to offer, the festival has become a major event on the culinary calendar. The event will also boast a local producers market, children’s cookery workshops, evening entertainment, food and drink tastings, fun-filled cookery demonstrations and much more to provide a gastronomic feast for all.

For all the latest information on the full cookery theatre programme, festival workshops, celebrity chef announcements and tickets join the facebook page at www.facebook.com/halifaxfoodfest or visit www.halifaxfoodanddrink.co.uk due to go live later this month.