Vintage, the festival voted UK’s Best New Festival at the 2010 Festival Awards last year, is back. This year, it forms part of the Festival of Britain’s 60th anniversary celebrations and takes place at the Southbank Centre over the weekend of the 29th to 31st of July.

We’d arrived to a glass of Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Champagne, to sip before and during the demonstration, and pretty soon after Jun Tanaka was setting about the creation of five ‘simple’ dishes, in his words. And were they simple? Well, I’ll certainly try a few at home when the opportunity arises.

Cloudy Bay wine is bringing the Cloudy Bay Shack – a pop-up airstream that offers the chance to experience some of the best Cloudy Bay wines matched with bespoke food dishes.

There’s something about summer that just calls for some outdoor eating; we went to A Grelha at the Gun in London’s Docklands for some Portuguese-inspired food and fresh-as-a-daisy fish, all al fresco, with the Thames a shimmering backdrop. Go while you can, because it won’t be there forever. Just don’t forget to take a jumper.

Kirin Ichiban, Japan’s Prime Brew has announced the launch of their ‘pop-up” Yatai in conjunction with the head chefs of London’s Japanese restaurant Yashin sushi & bar and their Kushiage style restaurant set to launch in 2012.

On Tuesday 19th July, The Mount Street Deli will host an evening tasting of Grower’s Champagne, hosted by Tom Harrow from Wine Chap, the leading experts on wine selection. The champagnes will be accompanied by canapés created by the deli’s head chef, Mary Lewis.

From this Bastille Day, i.e. today, Ocado will, we are told, become one of only a few retailers in the UK to sell the Reflets de France range from Carrefour. So if you’re a bit of a Francophile, and one of those among us who make regular trips to France to stock up on some authentic French produce (err, well and booze, of course) you might need to make that trip to Calais or Boulogne less often that you have in the past.

Luncheon is a new Sunday lunch dining club from Ben Tish, executive chef of The Salt Yard group and Max Halley, a freelance food journalist.

For one week only in the heart of Spitalfields Market, Maille Mustard will be operating a mustard Boutique. The Boutique will be open from Wednesday 13^th to Sunday 17^th July and will be located in Spitalfields’ Victorian market hall.

London’s first Som Tam bar, SUDA, will open in September 2011 in St Martin’s Courtyard, a new development in Covent Garden off Upper St Martin’s Lane.