Northcote reveals impressive chef lineup for its Obsession 19 event

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A roster of chefs from England and across the world, including James Lowe, Marc Fosh, Ollie Dabbous, Norbert Niederkofler, Andrew Wong, Marianne Lumb, Matt Orlando, Niall Keating and Romy Gill will be cooking at Northcote’s 19th annual Obsession chef event next year.

Taking place over 17 nights, from 18 January to 3 February, the event will see a total of 18 chefs from across the world cook at the Ribble Valley hotel.

Executive chef Lisa Goodwin-Allen, who took over the running of kitchen at the one Michelin-starred property from Nigel Haworth a year ago will open the culinary festival, with Howarth closing the event on the final night.

A chef from Canada will cook at Obsession for the first time in the event’s 19-year history, with Patrick Kriss from Alo restaurant in Ontario cooking on Sunday 27 January.

Marianne Lumb and Romy Gill will join Allen in the kitchen for the event’s ‘girl’s night’, which takes place on 31 January.

Speaking at the launch, Haworth said the line-up of chefs was “phenomenal”, saying that chef João Oliveira, from Vista restaurant in the Algarve, was "the most talented young chef in Portugal", and that chef Niall Keating was “one of the hot guys on the block at the minute”.

He also revealed that it had taken six months to get Andrew Wong to sign up to the event, and had to visit him at his restaurant on a number of occasions to convince him.

“Because I don’t have many woks in my kitchen it took quite a long time to persuade Andrew,” he said. “I think he’s the best thing since sliced bread; he’s honest, he’s gritty and he cooks great food.”

The Obsession 19 chef lineup in full:

Lisa Goodwin-Allen, Northcote, Lancashire (18 Jan)

Norbert Niederkofler, Hotel & Spa Rosa Alpina, San Cassiano (19 Jan)

Ian Scaramuzza, In Situ, San Francisco (20 Jan)

Ollie Dabbous, Hide, London (21 Jan)

Cristina Bowerman, Glass Hostaria, Rome (22 Jan)

Mark Fosh, Restaurant Mark Fosh, Mallorca (23 Jan)

Srijith Gopinathan, Taj Campton place, San Francisco (24 Jan)

James Lowe, Lyle’s, London (25 Jan)

Hywell Jones, Lucknam Park, Wiltshire (26 Jan)

Patrick Kriss, Alo, Ontario (27 Jan)

João Oliveira, Vista, Algarve (28 Jan)

Niall Keating, Whatley Manor, Wiltshire (29 Jan)

Andrew Womg, A Wong, London (30 Jan)

Marianne Lumb, Romy Gill (Romy’s Kitchen, Bristol) and Lisa Goodwin-Allen (31 Jan)

Sayan Isaksson (formerly of Esperanto, Stockholm) (1 Feb)

Matt Orlanso, Amass, Copenhagen (2 Feb)

Nigel Haworth, Northcote, Lancashire (3 Feb)