Updated 14/4/15 with final chef details
It sounds like a feast for all the senses: nestled in the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside, a festival dedicated to music, conversation, the arts - and the promise of some amazing food.
In fact we think the line up at the Wilderness Festival this August sounds pretty unmissable: while Bjork is headlining on the music stage, top chefs like Angela Hartnett, Mark Hix and Nuno Mendes will be cooking special banquets and tasting menus on tables laid out under the stars. There'll be the chance to try Portuguese food from Nuno Mendes, and British seasonal dishes by Merchant Tavern's Neil Borthwick, and Japanese-inspired food from Kurobuta's Scott Hallsworth, while James Knappett from Kitchen Table plans to echo his success at last year's event: "Being able to cook so close to nature at Wilderness 2014 was absolutely inspiring", he says. "We are really looking forward to coming back and reconnecting with the surroundings with a whole new menu."
A series of Long Table banquets will be part dinner party, part supper club - with everyone sitting together round a communal table. And for the first time, a high flying international chef is getting involved. Swedish wunderkind Niklas Ekstedt will be travelling over from his eponymous Michelin starred restaurant in Stockholm - where he's built a kitchen as it would have looked 200 years ago: there's no electricity, instead he creates what he calls "minor miracles with fire, smoke, ashes and soot". One of the pioneers of the latest New Nordic cuisine, this will be a rare opportunity to taste his food - all of it cooked using nothing but an open fire.
Ekstedt is certainly excited by the prospect: "You can find me climbing through the English countryside and peering through the trees at the wonders that unfold. It will be a world away from my fire-enraptured Stockholm restaurant, but close to my roots, embracing my love of the outdoors", he says.
Tickets for the feasting tables go on sale today - go to the website for details, and to book a ton of other sessions from yoga to cooking lessons and foraging trails. And for all those inveterate urbanites out there - never fear. There are special coaches to whisk you all the way from central London. Just remember to pack your wellies.
Update: The third and final chef to run long table banquet at Wilderness has just been announced and it's Raymond Blanc. The chef patron of Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons is putting on what is promised to be "an utterly incredible" banquet. Tickets for the Long Table Banquets will go on sale soon - watch this space.
Wilderness Festival takes place from 6-9 August 2015 at Cornbury Park, Charlbury, Oxfordshire OX7 3EH.
