A ticket to Cambridge Taste grants food lovers access to the city’s largest all-you-can-eat food festival when it returns Wednesday to University Park. (The date was moved from Tuesday.)
Each of the 44 participating restaurants are volunteering their time and food and using kitchen supplies paid for by Cambridge Taste sponsors, allowing 100 percent of ticket proceeds to benefit this year’s three charities: Cambridge Camping, Tutoring Plus and the Barron Scholarship Fund.
In its 19-year run, Cambridge Taste has donated almost $350,000 to local charities, organizers said.
Cambridge Taste “showcases the restaurant community in the best way possible,” said Bailey Clurman, the event’s volunteer marketing manager.
For ticket buyers, there are unlimited bites and sips from the tables of 44 vendors. For participating businesses, the festival is about charity and community.
The popular black Irish whiskey liqueur, Shanky’s Whip, will serve neat samples to festivalgoers – as it did June 11 at the annual Taste of Somerville. Shanky’s launched in 2020 and relies on tasting events to spread the product’s popularity, said Elwyn Gladstone, owner of the brand.
Reappearing at the food festival for the first time since the Covid pandemic, Iggy’s Bread will celebrate its 30th year in business with new Bavarian style pretzels. Iggy’s general manager Nick Zappia said participating in Cambridge Taste is a fun way to “reconnect with the community in Cambridge.”
Also returning to the festival is the Grafton Street Pub, Hourly Oyster House and Russell House Tavern, all managed by Grafton Group Hospitality.
“We’ve had very successful years post-Covid,” said Graham Lockwood, culinary director of the group. “We want to really focus our efforts on participating in local events and being a part of the community.”
Each restaurant will be represented with a signature dish: shepherd’s pie from Grafton Street Pub, local smoked bluefish pate and griddle corn cake from Russell House Tavern and, of course, oysters from Hourly Oyster House.
Lockwood plans to “shuck way too many oysters” at the festival to “give the people what they want on a nice hot summer day.” The original event date shows a high of 99 degrees; Wednesday’s forecast suggests a 35 percent chance of rain but a more tolerable high of 83 degrees.
Like Lockwood, The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts chief executive and executive director Sean P. Leonard views the festival as an opportunity to celebrate community – a nice moment considering “everything going on in the world.”
The school will be represented, and its CSCA Cafe. The menu features a “lazy man’s lobster roll” (made with shrimp) and handmade macarons as well as an array of drinks including George Howell iced coffee and a nonalcoholic sangria made with Mem Tea’s blood orange iced tea.
Leonard is looking forward to watching people’s faces when they “take that first bite” of their dishes and he can see his team “did it right.”
Cambridge Taste, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at University Park Commons, 65 Sidney St., Cambridgeport near Central Square, Cambridge. $72.
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