WARM your cockles by putting a date in your diary- the Dorset Seafood Festival 2015 takes place on July 11 and 12.

Now in its eighth year, the organisers of the famous festival say they are planning ‘glam your clam’ sessions, working with local experts and regionally caught seafood.

Visitors can expect to choose from 100 stallholders along Weymouth’s harbourside and there are new Sustainability Awards in place to reward exhibitors who use local seafood.

The star of last year’s event was the humble whelk, thousands of which were served up. This year the team is focusing on cockles, clams and oysters with a warm ‘whelkcome’ back to the whelk, with support from top chefs including Nigel Bloxham, fresh from his appearance on BBC Two’s Food & Drink Programme, ‘Harbour Lives’ Pete Miles, Dorset’s Masterchef Winner – Mat Follas, award winning Russell Brown, Taher Jibet, Matthew Budden and the amazing Duncan Lucas of Passionate About Fish.

Dorset Seafood Festival represents the UK’s largest, free to attend, seafood festival, recently placed first in Conde Nast Travellers’ UK’s best food festivals list, second in Country Life’s top five food festivals, fifth in the Financial Times ‘foodie festivals’ as well as winning Gold in the inaugural Dorset Tourism Awards for Tourism Event of the Year and Silver in the South West Tourism Excellence Awards in 2013/14.

Sara Hicks, commercial director, Vranken Pommery UK said: “We believe that the Dorset Seafood Festival is the perfect event for our champagne, matching the quality of local seafood with the historical setting of Weymouth Harbour to provide an exceptional festival atmosphere. The Festival’s focus on local and regional seafood enables us to offer a lovely combination of champagne and fresh oysters as well as some exciting tapas dishes this year.”

A not for profit event, the organisers are looking to beat the £11,000 raised for The Fishermen’s Mission, the event’s chosen charity, in 2014.

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