What is Black Eats London? The UK's first and only Black-owned food festival
If you're a foodie in London, chances are you've heard whispers about Black Eats LDN. The festival has been around for five years, showcasing and celebrating Black food and culture, dedicating its platform to making noise about businesses that too often go unheard.
From July 25, the food festival returns to its original venue in Hackney, bringing culture, music and incredible food together under one roof for three days straight.
What is Black Eats Ldn?
Black Eats LDN launched in August 2020 after founder Jackson McLarty noticed a clear lack of spotlight on Black‑owned restaurants despite London being one of the most multicultural cities in the world. His goal is to inspire sustainable support for Black food and hospitality businesses, and boost the UK's Black food scene.
Just two months after launching, he secured Uber as his first paid client. Today, the brand regularly curates line‑ups at major festivals like City Splash and Cross the Tracks and its own flagship festival now features more than 300 restaurants, with big‑name partners including Uber, Apple and Bacardi.
What sets the Black Eats LDN Festivalapart?
At first glance, Black Eats might look like any other summer food festival - crowds of Londoners lining up for mouth‑watering street food, soaking up the sun with friends and family. But there's intention behind every detail. Black Eats is a platform built to celebrate and uplift Black‑owned businesses that deserve recognition.
The festival combines food and culture in one experience because for many of us, food is more than just a meal. It's social, it's a hobby, and it's a direct connection to cultures around the world. Black Eats makes it easy for all kinds of foodies to discover businesses and experience the richness of our culinary communities.
For more stories like this subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Weekly Gulp, for a curated roundup of trending stories, poignant interviews, and viral lifestyle picks from The Mirror's Audience U35 team delivered straight to your inbox.
And it's not just about the food. The festival also showcases Black‑owned retail brands, bookshops, and live DJs - truly a full‑culture experience.
Even if you can't make it to Hackney, Black Eats runs an online directory with more than 500 restaurants, cafés, bars and street food spots across the UK - complete with reviews and recommendations carefully selected by the team.
When and where is Black Eats LDN Festival?
Black Eats LDN Festival runs from 25th of July to 27th of July at Hackney Bridge. If you're looking for incredible food, good vibes and a chance to support Black‑owned businesses doing brilliant things, it's worth checking out.
The event will split the day with a daytime session between 12-5pm suitable for all ages and a night time session from 5-9pm specifically for 18+.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time Out
3 hours ago
- Time Out
Explore the Gay Harlem Renaissance in this new exhibit coming to The New York Historical
Many New Yorkers know about the Harlem Renaissance, but a new exhibit opening this fall explores a more unknown facet of the era—the Gay Harlem Renaissance. The New York Historical will host a new exhibit examining the Black LGBTQ+ artists, writers and performers vital to the Harlem Renaissance and everyday Black gay life in the early 20th century. "The Gay Harlem Renaissance," will open on October 10 and run until March 8, 2026. This unique exhibit traces queer creativity, friendship circles and mentorships that once flourished in Harlem's salons, social clubs and thriving nightlight. The show also highlights specific Harlem Renaissance poets, novelists and artists—many of whom were gay or bisexual. After the First World War, Black Southern and Caribbean migrants, activists and creatives transformed Harlem into a nexus of political activism, creative expression and community life. Many of Harlem's artists were gay or bisexual (some discreetly, some openly), and many singers and performers in nightclubs or speakeasies were lesbian, bisexual, or transmasculine. LGBTQ+ artists, on-stage and off, helped shape the culture and art of the era. Queer and straight artists were said to have formed close-knit circles, mentorships and collaborated on ideas that shaped Black art and culture. Black LGBTQ+ life was far more visible, accepted and integrated into the daily life of 1920s Harlem than most people imagine. "'The Gay Harlem Renaissance' shows that Black LGBTQ+ life was far more visible, accepted and integrated into the daily life of 1920s Harlem than most people imagine," George Chauncey, the exhibition's chief historian said in a press release. Featuring more than 200 objects, the exhibition includes painting, sculpture, artifacts, documents, photographs, books and music from collections across the country—all which celebrate the creativity, innovation and resilience of Black LGBTQ+ Harlemites while facing racist and homophobic pressures. Some highlights include "Employment of the Negro in Agriculture," a 1934 painting by Earle Richardson that honors the resilience of African American agricultural laborers within the oppression of the Jim Crow System; "Color," the 1925 first edition of Countee Cullen's first book of poetry, whose mentor Alain Locke helped Cullen accept his sexuality; and a Gelatin silver print of Gladys Bentley, a transmasculine performer who became a star in Harlem, famous for playing popular nightclubs and rent parties. "We hope that this show will invite visitors to consider how intimate friendships, chosen families and radical ideas about identity helped define the Harlem Renaissance and continue to resonate today," Dr. Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of The New York Historical said in a statement. The exhibition is curated by Allison Robinson, associate curator of history exhibitions and Anne Lessy, assistant curator of history exhibitions and academic engagement, with contributions from Rebecca Klassen, curator of material culture and decorate arts and chief historian
Edinburgh Reporter
8 hours ago
- Edinburgh Reporter
Edinburgh Art Festival 2025 – EAF Pavilion now open
Edinburgh Art Festival begins today, with a packed programme of commissioned works, special events and partner exhibitions. Themes of this year's festival include political shifts, environmental change and global social movements, all filtered through the painting, sculpture, performance, moving image and photography of local, national and international artists. This year the festival is based in the new EAF Pavilion hosted by Outer Spaces at 45 Leith Street. The Pavilion will be open 10am-5pm every day until 24 August, and will include a Welcome Space where you can find information about the festival, artists' research and the Festival shop. Bea Webster in who will be remembered here (c) Lewis Hetherington and CJ Mahony Several commissioned works will be shown in the Pavilion; Lewis Hetherington and CJ Mahony's who will be remembered here is a moving film in which four queer writers respond to Historic Scotland sites. Each writer employs a different language. Bea Webster's BSL contribution is especially touching, as they contemplate what might have been the experience of deaf, queer people inhabiting the land around the Machrie Moor Standing Stones long ago, and question what happened to those people's stories. Meanwhile, Trans Masc Studies: Memory is a Museum traces the history of masculine-leaning gender diversity in Scotland, Jj Fadaka and Ria Andrews' My Blood Runs Purple interrogates the subject of historically marginalised bodies and healthcare, and Alice Rekab's Let Me Show You Who I Am addresses themes of diaspora, migration and Irish and Black identity. As Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF25 opens today) Director of the festival Kim McAleese and Curator Eleanor Edmonson stand with a new billboard work created by Alice Rekab that delves into themes of diaspora, migration, and Irish and Black identity. Pic Neil Hanna Outer Spaces is a charity giving artists access to free studio space in empty office buildings across Scotland. 45 Leith Street is just one of their projects, with about 100 artists working in the building. This year the charity and EAF are together presenting HOST, a new artist residency giving early-career artists studio space in Edinburgh for six months. Visitors are invited to explore the HOST artists' practices every Saturday during the festival. View from the terrace on the fifth floor of Outer Spaces on Leith Street Jillian Lee Adamson is a HOST resident; often sewing for ten hours a day, she employs slow stitching to make intricate, beautiful embroidery cells. The delicate appearance of her work 'belies its true strength, symbolising the incredible resilience and inner strength within us all.' (c) Jillian Lee Anderson Jillian's studio has a spectacular view over the city and the Forth, with doors opening onto an airy terrace. The one downside of Outer Spaces studios is that tenants may be asked to leave at any time if the landlord requires the building for its own purposes, but the charity is doing everything it can to offer tenants an alternative space. The average stay in one studio is 9 months to 3 years. Another major EAF commission takes place at the Royal Botanic Garden. Inverleith House will host Linder's Danger Came Smiling, her first retrospective in Scotland, while on the evening of 7 August this pioneering feminist artist will perform A kind of glamour about me, reflecting on the transformative power of creativity to shape identity and social mobility. Seminal feminist artist and icon, Linder Sterling live pastes a new, large scale art work onto billboards to mark the launch of Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF25, 7-24 Aug) and this year's programme partnership with JACK ARTS part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD Scotland. Linder is performing within the EAF25 programme on Thursday 7th August as well as having her first major Edinburgh retrospective, both of which take place at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh as part of EAF25. Pic Neil Hanna Partner galleries, venues and public buildings offer a wide spectrum of exhibitions, installations and performances, from The Scottish Gallery's Decades, a celebration of Victoria Crowe's 80th year, to the Scottish National Gallery's acclaimed Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years, Fruitmarket's Mike Nelson installation, and the UK premiere of Raven Chacon: Voiceless Masses, performed by Scottish Ensemble at St Giles' Cathedral on 9 August. Chacon's composition explores the deliberate silencing of voices within colonial and institutional frameworks, in particular the complicity of the Catholic Church in the suppression of Indigenous voices, and the abduction and abuse of Indigenous children in residential schools in the Americas. The Garden (c) Sian Davey At Stills Centre for Photography, Sian Davey's The Garden documents the artist's and her son's transformation of their Devon garden into a wildflower haven and a community space. From 8 August Blackie House Library and Museum will host Ring of Truth, in which contemporary artists and musicians respond to the enigmatic Music of the Spheres manuscripts, believed to be Coptic compositions from 5th-6th century Egypt. At Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop you can see Megan Rudden's Love in the Ecotone, exploring the relationship between sculpture and language, and Louise Gibson's Beachheads, a series of monumental sculptures crafted from discarded industrial and household materials, highlighting the excesses and wastefulness of consumer culture. Still in Leith, Customs Wharf presents Orcadian artist Brandon Logan's paintings; drawing from Orkney's environment and culture, Little Low Heavens channels a new queer take on minimal abstraction. Edinburgh Printmakers are presenting two exhibitions. Aqsa Arif's Raindrops of Raini, a multimedia installation encompassing film, textile screenprints and sculpture to probe themes of fractured identity, displacement and cultural synthesis. Hall of Hours, Robert Powell's multimedia exhibition, is inspired by mediaeval Books of Hours, inviting audiences to consider the passage of time and how humans relate to it. Artist Aqsa Arif is photographed at her exhibition Raindrops of Rani which opens at Edinburgh Printmakers on Friday 1st August and runs until 2nd November and is part of Edinburgh Art Festival. In the exhibition Arif weaves together lived memory, generational trauma and South Asian folklore into an immersive installation featuring reactive printed tapestry on velvet. Through film screenprints, photography and sculpture, the exhibition explores displacement not only as rupture but also as a site of resilience and reconnection. Pic Neil Hanna 07702 246823 The Art Festival's Civic programme involves year-round collaborations with artists, individuals and communities who find alternative ways to organise through art, providing the space for longer-term creative collaborations and aiming to make public spaces and the art world more accessible, engaging for those who have previously been excluded from them. The Community Wellbeing Collective in Wester Hailes is a socially engaged, community-led, art collective of 30+ people living in or connected to the area. On 16 August, CWC will host What We Make With What We Have, a shared meal and a discussion about ways in which communities and individuals can create possibilities in times of crisis. The Travelling Gallery will be out and about with its new group exhibition. SEEDLINGS: DIASPORIC IMAGINARIES, curated by Jelena Sofronijevic, explores ways to connect with our worlds through other-than-human perspectives, and seeks to destabilise systems that favour scientific theory and marginalise ancestral knowledge and indigenous cosmologies. Catch the gallery at Coburg Studios on 9 August, CWC in Wester Hailes on 11 August and The Ripple, Restalrig Road, on 14 August. At The People's Story Museum on the Canongate, EAF's first early career artist-in-residence Hamish Halley's installation narrates two stories; the cleaning of his grandparents' home after their deaths and the transition of Perth Museum's collection to a new space. As well as developing his practice, Hamish is working with local communities through discussions, events and workshops, inviting people to reflect on their own relationships with memory, place and transformation. Hamish will offer a tour of his work on 14 August. Sett Studios on Leith Walk will offer two unusual exhibitions. On 8-10 August FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS invites all supporters of the studio to run the space, bringing in their own work for a packed salon-style show. And from 22 to 24 August Get in Loser, We're Going to Sett Studios will feature an array of artmaking mediums, approaches and concepts from SETT studio residents. Climb up to Calton Hill to visit Collective, which will host Fire on the Mountain, Light on the Hill, Mercedes Azpilicueta's first solo exhibition in Scotland, a monumental tapestry exploring care and resistance, revealing overlooked female histories. There will be a special live performance on 22 August. Climb down again to visit Edinburgh College of Art at Inspace on Crichton Street for two exhibitions focusing on artists' responses to AI. Tipping Point features seven new works by artists including Rachel Maclean and Julie Freeman, while in Authenticity Unmasked: Unveiling AI-Driven Realities Through Art (note: this one ends on 17 August), three artists present works to prompt reflection on when authenticity matters and what shapes perceptions of human versus AI-mediated content. And if you need to get out of festival city, take a trip to Jupiter Artland in West Lothian to see their three current exhibitions, Jonathan Baldok's WYRD, Guy Oliver's Millennial Prayer and WORK BEGAT WORK, pairing the work of Ian Hamiton Finlay and Andy Goldsworthy, two artists central to Jupiter Artland's history. On the evening of 23 August, EAF's closing event will take place at Firststage Studios in Leith. Bornsick, co-commissioned with Serpentine, is a new performance by queer movement artist Lewis Walker. It will reflect the idea that we inherit illness, born into a system that shapes us before we can define ourselves. Finally, on 24 August at the EAF pavilion, the Festival's closing conversation Where Do We Stand? will include open conversation, film screenings, performance and shared food, all centered on the world we live in, how we shape it and how it shapes us in return. Some of these exhibitions and events are ticketed; many are free. For details, visit the Festival's website or pick up a programme from EAF Pavilion. Jj Fadeka in their studio at The Cube, 45 Leith St, Edinburgh. Photo credit Sally Jubb Like this: Like Related
Edinburgh Reporter
8 hours ago
- Edinburgh Reporter
Edinburgh Art Festival 2025 opens today
Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF25) opens today and to mark the beginning of the festival which is the UK's largest annual festival of visual art, Festival Director, Kim McAleese, and Curator, Eleanor Edmonson, are photographed standing alongside a new billboard work created by Alice Rekab. This work delves into themes of diaspora, migration, and Irish and Black identity. Shown on billboards across the city, Alice Rekab's Let Me Show You Who I Am examines legacies of migration and strategies of survival within the family unit, with a focus on intergenerational experiences of Irish, Black and Mixed-Race life in Liverpool and Edinburgh for a major new public art work to be shown on poster sites across Edinburgh. As Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF25) opens Director of the festival Kim McAleese and Curator Eleanor Edmonson stand with a new billboard work created by Alice Rekab Pic Neil Hanna Co-commissioned with Liverpool Biennial 2025 and supported by JACK ARTS Scotland, the artworks will be the result of a focussed creative workshop made physical. The workshops will bring together four creative collaborators from across Ireland and Scotland to work with young people through music, dance, voice and ceramics to create a platform for young people's self-expression. The project is generously supported by Culture Ireland and marks the start of a long term working relationship with Alice Rekab as part of the festival's focus on long term collaboration. The work is co-created with the SCORE Scotland young people in Wester Hailes, the work reflects on the artist's Irish, Sierra Leonean, and Syrian family histories, creating powerful visual narratives of belonging and identity between Ireland and Scotland. The artworks will be shown publicly in August on billboards at Wishaw Terrace (the location in the photos) during EAF25 and around the city from 7-24 August. The 21st edition of the festival includes 82 exhibitions and 45 partner galleries and venues included in the biggest EAF programme to date with all tickets for all events now on sale. As Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF25) opens Director of the festival Kim McAleese and Curator Eleanor Edmonson stand with a new billboard work created by Alice Rekab Pic Neil Hanna As Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF25) opens Director of the festival Kim McAleese and Curator Eleanor Edmonson stand with a new billboard work created by Alice Rekab Pic Neil Hanna As Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF25) opens Director of the festival Kim McAleese and Curator Eleanor Edmonson stand with a new billboard work created by Alice Rekab Pic Neil Hanna As Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF25) opens Director of the festival Kim McAleese and Curator Eleanor Edmonson stand with a new billboard work created by Alice Rekab Pic Neil Hanna Like this: Like Related
