Food Festival 2026 brought Aarhus together around food

The rain has been a recurring guest during this year's Food Festival, but fortunately it hasn't kept people at home. Tangkrogen was once again packed with tastings, workshops, talks, food over an open fire and producers who were happy to take the time to tell the story behind what they brought.

It can be tempting to join the first line when you enter the Food Festival. Small samples are handed out over the counter, something is sizzling on a pan further up, and the smell from the grill area has a way of luring you in a certain direction.

But the best advice is to actually skip it all in the first place and instead start with a walk around the square.

The Food Festival is large, but easy to navigate because the different areas are clearly divided. After a single round, you will quickly have a sense of whether you should return to the Plant Kingdom, find the grill area, explore the producers or perhaps head towards Nordic Drops.

And then the tasting can begin.

A small food town at Tangkrogen

The Food Festival has become a regular part of late summer in Aarhus, and if you visit the festival from year to year, a lot will feel familiar. That doesn't matter, because the concept works, and the different areas mean that there is always something new to discover.

In Planteriget, the focus is on green and plant-based cuisine, while another area is about fish and marine life. At the grill area, people work over the embers, and this year you could once again follow the Danish Grill Championship. Between the larger areas are many smaller stalls with food, drinks and products for the kitchen.

This means that the festival doesn't just feel like one long row of stands that you walk past. The different areas each have their own content and atmosphere, and it's precisely the variety that makes it enjoyable to walk around without necessarily having a set plan from home.

Even though there were many people in the square, the atmosphere was relaxed. As usual, there were queues at several of the popular tastings, and the people behind the counters were busy passing out small bites and glasses to the waiting guests. Nevertheless, people waited quite patiently, chatting in the queues and making room for each other.

Here follows the story with the tasting

The tastings are of course a big part of the Food Festival, but one of the nice things is that the experience often continues a little longer than the small bite or what is poured into the glass.

The people in the stalls want to tell you about their products. It could be the story of the raw materials, how something is produced, or why they have chosen to do things the way they do. For the producers, the festival is also an opportunity to meet consumers face to face, and as a guest, this means that a taste test can easily develop into a good chat over the counter.

This is particularly noticeable in Nordic Drops, where you could buy 10 tasting tokens for 120 kroner and then go exploring among the small bars. Here it was not just a question of getting something in the glass, because in several places the story of production, raw materials and manufacturing followed the tasting.

The atmosphere in the area was, perhaps not surprisingly, a bit more festive than in several other places at the festival. People lingered, chatting and sampling their way from stall to stall, and the area was bustling with activity.

When small tasters are no longer enough

You can hardly get to the Food Festival without tasting something along the way, but at some point the small bites can no longer keep the real hunger at bay. Fortunately, there is also ample opportunity to sit down with something that takes up a little more space on your plate.

In the dining area, you could choose between burgers, luxury sandwiches, pizza and ramen, so there was something different to choose from depending on your appetite and mood.

Coffee had also got its own area, and here it wasn't just about quenching your thirst for coffee. You could also learn more about brewing and how to get good coffee from the beans at home. There was great interest, and there were a lot of people around the activities.

Of course, since you're at a food festival anyway, it's also hard to completely ignore the sweet section. Ice cream and chocolate were among the options, so there wasn't much help to be had if the plan at home had been to demonstrate an impressive degree of self-discipline.

You could also bring something home for the kitchen.

It's not just your stomach that can be filled at the Food Festival. Several of the stalls sold products and equipment, so your tour could also end with something new for the kitchen.

Bent Brandt was among the places that attracted many curious people with sales on ceramics and other kitchen items. Other places at the festival also had good deals, and in one of the tents, for example, cast iron pans were discounted by 35 percent.

It may not be the part of the Food Festival that you first think of, but it's worth taking a closer look at the stalls along the way. Among all the tastings, there's also the opportunity to find something for the kitchen at a good price.

The children can join in themselves

Food Festival has plenty to offer for children, without the activities necessarily being just for them.

At Planteriget, you could get up close to cows and calves. It may be everyday life for some, but especially for children growing up in the middle of the city, it can be something completely different to suddenly come face to face with animals they don't usually encounter.

There were also creative activities around the square, while both children and adults could gather around the open fire and bake pancakes and snobrød. That was one of the nice things about those areas, because they weren't activities where the adults necessarily stood on the sidelines and waited. Here you could participate together.

This helps make the Food Festival an experience where families with children can easily spend several hours. Adults don't have to choose between their own food experiences and something for the children, because the two things are well mixed together around the square.

Talks and workshops provide a break from the stalls

Between tastings, there is also the opportunity to go inside the larger tents, where workshops and talks are held throughout the day. Several of them were very well attended, and they give the festival a little more depth than you get by simply moving from tasting to tasting.

Here you can sit down for a moment, learn more about a specific topic or get new inspiration to take home before continuing your tour to the square.

The ongoing program is also a good reason to set aside a good amount of time for your visit. Three hours can quickly pass, and if you want to both enjoy food, tastings and workshops and also have time to talk to some of the producers, you can easily spend a large part of the day at Tangkrogen.

The program changes throughout the weekend.

The Food Festival spans three days, and although many of the areas and stalls remain the same throughout the weekend, the program changes along the way.

During this year's festival, you could experience workshops on everything from cheese and vegetables to pizza and coffee, taste Danish ice wine, learn about seaweed and other raw materials from the sea, or take the children to activities around a campfire and cooking. On Sunday, the competitive atmosphere was also turned up, when the Danish Hotdog Championship was decided at Tangkrogen.

It is precisely part of the Food Festival's format that the square does not stand still from Friday to Sunday. Talks, workshops, competitions and activities change throughout the days, so no two visits to the festival will necessarily be the same. Therefore, it is also a good idea to look through the day's program before heading to Tangkrogen, especially if there are specific workshops, competitions or tastings you want to attend.

Start with a walk around

If this is your first time visiting the Food Festival, it is therefore worth starting with a tour of the square.

It may take a little willpower to get past the first few tastings, but once you've seen the area, it's much easier to choose what you want to spend your time on. Maybe it's the Plant Kingdom that's drawing you, maybe you want to join in the grilling, learn something new at a workshop, or spend extra time talking to the producers.

The audience at Tangkrogen was at least as varied as the festival's content. There were families with children, couples, friends, and what most had in common was the curiosity to taste, look, and explore.

The rain has been a part of this year's Food Festival, but it hasn't dampened the spirits. There were plenty of people, queues at the popular stalls and a relaxed atmosphere in the square, where the many different guests mingled with each other.

You can't possibly see it all in one visit, but you don't really need to. One of the nice things about the Food Festival is just walking around without a busy schedule and seeing what ends up in your glass, on your plate or maybe in your shopping bag.

And the winners were…

When the Food Festival closed on Sunday, the winners of the weekend's major competitions could also be announced. Restaurant Fauna from Aalborg won the Hotdog Championship 2026 with their Bål-grilled Grisepjok, where the sausage was made from welfare pigs and fallow deer, among other things, and served with guanciale, North Jutland flower honey and potato-garlic cream.

However, the Hotdog DM was about more than finding Denmark's best hotdog. During the competition, hotdogs worth 159.975 kroner were sold, and all the revenue was donated to the organization 5 Skoler, which runs 16 schools near the border with Syria and provides children with education, a safe environment and a daily meal.

Winners were also announced elsewhere at Tangkrogen. BBQ Vikings won the Danish Grill Championship, while Ziropa x Njord Gin won Cocktail of the Year with The Sweet Claw, made with rosehip, raspberries and Sichuan-distilled gin.

A total of 27.000 guests visited the Food Festival over the three days. This year, the festival had a record 10 festival areas and 9 stages, while more than 250 companies, associations and organizations helped fill Tangkrogen with tasting experiences, workshops, competitions and activities.

Facts about the Food Festival

• Where: Tangkrogen, Aarhus
• When: Early September
• Duration: Three days of food experiences, tastings and activities
• At the festival: Tastings, food stalls, workshops, talks, competitions, activities for children and sales of kitchen equipment
• Festival areas: 10 different areas including the plant kingdom, the sea, barbecue, coffee and drinks
• Size: The festival site covers approximately 50.000 m².
• Exhibitors: Around 250 companies, manufacturers, associations and organizations
• Expected number of visitors in 2026: Approximately 30.000 guests
• For children: Children up to and including 10 years old had free admission with an adult
• Held: Food Festival takes place every year in Aarhus