Kilkenny has been suggested as the successor to Kinsale as the gourmet capital of Ireland, with the recent awarding of two Michelin stars to the city’s Campagne restaurant and the Lady Helen dining room at Mount Juliet hotel in Thomastown. This weekend the region gets the chance to flout its foodie credentials as the seventh annual Savour Kilkenny food festival takes place at venues throughout the city and county.

The popular Food Camp element of the programme has been moved to tomorrow to allow more people to attend, and it takes place at the Ormonde Hotel, with the theme: “You are what you eat – fact or fiction”.

Masterchef 2011 finalist Clare Anne O'Keeffe hosts an eight-course game dinner in the atmospheric basement kitchen at Kilkenny Castle tomorrow night, and Lyrath Estate hotel is offering a Downton Abbey seven course tasting menu, also tomorrow. There will be cooking demonstrations from well known chefs including Sunil Ghai, Kevin Dundon and Cormac Rowe, and a more intensive master Class with Ballymaloe Cookery School tutor Rory O'Connell. Restaurants in the city will be adopting a country for the weekend and designing a menu around its specialities, and the food market at Parade Plaza will have food stalls, street food and artisan food to purchase. For the full programme for the weekend, see savourkilkenny.com.