Lyon chefs serve up a first for the UK

Marketing Birmingham is working with the city’s top restaurants an Birmingham City Council on a new Europe-wide culinary network called Delice, the Good Food Cities of the World.

20 European cities, including Barcelona, Milan and Lyon, are part of the Delice network, and Birmingham is the only city in the UK to have been invited to join.

The aim of the Delice network is to promote city to city sharing of cuisine and good practice within the catering industry. Delice also encourages and develops young culinary talent across the network cities.

Marketing Birmingham is working with Birmingham City Council and key city partners on an exchange event as part of Delice. Birmingham has teamed up with its twin city Lyon and invited four Michelin-starred chefs from the prestigious “Toques Blanches Lyonnaises” organisation to visit Birmingham to experience the city’s food offering. During the visit from 2 – 5 March 2008, there will be exclusive dinners at both Opus and Simpsons restaurants.

The visit will conclude with the “Lyon and Birmingham Chefs Delice Celebration Dinner” on Tuesday 4th March. The chefs from Lyon, along with local Birmingham chefs, will prepare a special dinner at the University College Birmingham for invited guests.

Councillor Mike Whitby, Leader of Birmingham City Council says:

“It is an honour that Birmingham is the only city in the UK to become a founder member of the Delice network and this is testimony to our excellent chefs and first-class cuisine. I very much look forward to welcoming the chefs from Lyon in March and showing them what our wonderful city has to offer.”

Neil Rami, chief executive at Marketing Birmingham, says:

“Birmingham is the first of the cities in the Delice network to take part in the exchange and it is a great opportunity for Birmingham to showcase its wide culinary offering and position itself as a leading gourmet city in Europe.”

Andreas Antona, owner of Simpsons restaurant is working closely with the chefs to co-ordinate the event. He said:

“It’s an honour to be working with French chefs of such standing and I’m extremely proud to have the opportunity to show them what we can do here in Birmingham. The standard of cuisine and expertise in this city is world-class and the Delice celebrations will enable us to really shout about it.”