Many of Hitchin’s restaurants, cafes, pubs and local producers have been featured in this month’s Olive Magazine after a visit from its writers. Olive is one of the UK’s leading national food magazines.

A full page of coverage was devoted to a positive review of Hitchin’s food and drink scene – including events such as the Food Festival and Hitchin Food Monthly.

This follows a review of Hitchin from national food journalist, Neil R Davey, and an article in online food magazine, Lovefood.com.

The coverage in Olive also features a map showing a selection the UK’s best food festivals, on which Hitchin feature prominently.

Neil Davey, who writes for titles such as The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and Delicious and travels the world sampling and writing about food, described Hitchin as “surprising, charming and – best of all – thriving”.

Olive magazine, Neil Davey and Lovefood.com were contacted by the Blue Otter Trail which is a consortium of local restaurant owners and independent food and drink retailers who are promoting Hitchin’s Food and Drink ‘scene’ to potential visitors.

Paul Payne, owner of Blue Otter Wines and co-founder of the Blue Otter Trail, said: “We couldn’t be happier with the coverage. Our aim has always been to get Hitchin on the food and drink tourism ‘map’ and that is quite literally what we have achieved with Olive.

“We know that readers of Olive are passionate about their food and are likely to visit the places Olive recommends. The fact that both Olive and Neil Davey only had time to visit a handful of places in Hitchin yet were so pleasantly surprised at how much Hitchin has to offer, is more confirmation that we really do have something special going on in the town.

“These reviews bode well for the future in terms of encouraging more food writers and bloggers to write about Hitchin and, ultimately, increasing the number of visitors to Hitchin. We hope these are the first of many national articles on the fantastic food and drink scene in our town.”