For those of you who don’t know about Henley festival held a week after after the Henley Regatta, a magical yearly event best known for it’s celebrity chef’s pop-up restaurants, sharp designer wear, art and sculpture. An extraordinary atmosphere of boats all docked along the Thames and fireworks followed by late night parties ending the sophisticated event.
The festival is actually a not-for-profit organisation that supports and promotes projects that inspire and transform the lives of young people, groups at risk and those with special needs. In 2014 a new working partnership with leading British charity, The Prince’s Foundation for Children and the Arts called Children and Arts. Established in 2006, The Prince’s Foundation reaches out to children from areas of social and economic disadvantage and introduces them to inspirational, life-changing arts experiences. The initiative also empowers teachers to bring the arts into classrooms with confidence, by creating high quality resource materials and offering intensive arts-based training and development.
I was grateful to have been invited by the Roux family to dine at the “Roux at the Riverside” which is sponsored by St.James Homes. The food is prepared by chef Albert and Michel Roux Jr, equally renowned chef patron at Le Gavroche.