After sixteen nights of show-stopping culinary excellence, Obsession comes to a close once again and service at Northcote returns to normal. This year the festival saw award-winning chefs come from as far as Taiwan, Japan and Mexico to showcase their cuisine, as well as putting home-grown talent in the spotlight. For Nigel Haworth, it was one of the most successful Obsessions to date.
‘This year’s Obsession was absolutely amazing,’ he says. ‘It keeps developing and improving every time we host it, but it was the diversity that really stood out this time. All the participating chefs left learning something new – different techniques from Peru, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico and Poland were showcased, which was really interesting to see. It was a privilege to work with so many different enthusiastic chefs that were so charitable about passing on knowledge.’
The chefs change every year at Obsession, and Nigel and Lisa Allen usually close the festival with their own bespoke menus. But the event itself is constantly evolving, too. ‘This year we introduced chef demonstrations, which everyone absolutely loved, so we’re keeping them for next year,’ says Nigel. ‘There was also a much larger focus on wine matching – it’s such a special thing that Craig does, so it was great to make it more prominent.’
