Tom Kerridge has opened up about his food-festival Pub in the Park which is set for its seventh year in his hometown of Marlow.

The food festival will return to Higginson Park in May 2023 and Kerridge believes it is now a staple event that the town looks forward to.

The celebrity TV chef takes the festival on tour, with ten locations getting ready for next year, but Marlow was the original location.

He said: “Marlow completely embraces it, it’s a fantastic thing to be a part of it, it’s the original one.

“The chefs love coming here, it's got such good energy to it so we're so excited to be bringing it back.

“It’s the home space where our businesses are, it’s incredibly well supported. It gets that feeling from the town of being embraced as part of its own. It’s something the town is now really looking forward to.”

The local Michelin-starred chef has three restaurants in the town which he says he is “super proud to call home”.

He continued: “Marlow is one of those incredible communities that is built on social connections around sport, schools, family, friends, small-scale independent operations and has this wonderful hub of the community that people are really proud to be part of.

“It is really supportive, if you look at the Christmas lights being turned on or the late-night shopping, there is always something exciting in Marlow that people are engaged in, that is what makes it such a special place.

“I’m super proud to live here and call it home and be a part of it.

“It really does support the independents, and something like Pub in the Park hopefully helps with all the independent shops with all the people coming into the town and helps put Marlow on the map a little bit.”

This year acts such as Sam Ryder, Tinie Tempah, the Sugababes, The Jacksons and Clean Bandit will perform on stage in Higginson park.

The stage will also see former Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles, entertainers Dick and Dom and acts including UB40 featuring Ali Campbell and 1980s pop group Bananarama.

This year saw the biggest Marlow event to date with 30,000 in attendance and 56,000 dishes served, as Kerridge let us know of one restaurant to look out for.

Kerridge added: “There are loads of brilliant, fun, upbeat, good energy acts. The great thing about it, it feels like it’s a national festival but actually, it's all on our doorstep.

“I’m always a big fan of Cue Point, which is Afghan British BBQ food.

“I love that slow-cooked brisket flavours that they manage to bring and they do such a good job of it so looking forward of them making a re-emergence.”

The concept was first born in order to celebrate the Hand & Flowers tenth anniversary but after not being able to get the idea up and running in time, Kerridge was able to spend more time on the idea.

He continued: “It worked in our favour that it didn’t set up in time as it gave us more time to get it done correctly and properly.

“The vibe of it went so well that we wanted to do more of it but without necessarily growing the footprint of Marlow so we decided to take it on tour.

“So off we go to St Albans, Reigate, Tunbridge Wells but embracing the original Marlow blueprint.”

Early bird tickets remain on sale until midnight on Sunday, December 18. For more information visit, https://www.pubintheparkuk.com/.