Winter Festival set to get taste-buds tingling

Organisers of this year’s Winter Festival have all the ingredients to get taste-buds tingling.

Diners can look forward to a fine feast with whisky pairing brought to the table by a world-renowned foraging chef.

Taste of Argyll Kitchen in Argyll Street will be opening on November 27 and November 28 with sittings at 5.30pm and 8pm for a seven-course field to fork set menu. Tickets are £45 or £65, including the whisky experience. The cafe will also be hosting a cheese and wine night on November 26, which is bookable for £19.99.

Taste of Argyll’s Katherine MacKenzie hopes news of the events will start to work up people’s appetite for the Winter Festival’s 10-day programme.

‘We’re really looking forward to this year’s festival. People missed it last year. We all did, so it’s fantastic it’s back and we can be a part of it.’

Winners of a pumpkin and scarecrow competition met at Taste of Argyll’s Aird’s Place shop to receive their prizes by Winter Festival mascot Coolio.

As part of the festival, ReCentre in Oban is offering a Winter Wellness event from November 18 to November 21. Over the four days, there will be a health boosting programme packed with holistic therapies, pilates, yoga and reflexology sessions, a skincare awareness workshop with Barcaldine Botanics and the chance to tuck into nutritious food at a pop-up Catchacarrot vegan cafe.

ReCentre’s Susan De Almeida Ferreira said it will be just the tonic as a perfect self-care pick-up during the dark months. The wellness event was inspired by the joy of ReCentre’s first birthday celebration at the start of September when people were able to start getting together again for workshops.

‘It just felt as though there was a lot of healing going on, just by people coming together again. We thought as we enter the darker months and haven’t got the sunshine to pick us up that it would be a good idea to organise a wellness festival. When we came up with the dates we didn’t realise it was going to be the big winter festival at the same time, so it’s a double bonus,’ said Susan.

All the details can be found at www.recentreoban.com/ events

Above: Winter Festival mascot Coolio with Kyle Mackie, aged 8, of Nant Drive, Oban, whose scarecrow was a winner with judges of a Hallowe’en competition at Taste of Argyll in Aird’s Place and, right, Arran Higgins, 14, with his winning pumpkin and Coolio.