If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the Opera festival

Braving a record-breaking heatwave, Cherwell Collective’s Climatarian Kitchen returned as the hospitality partner for the 2026 Waterperry Opera Festival.  

A combination of hamper and restaurant services totalled over 400 meals, and our diners saved the equivalent of over 16,000 car miles of emissions through Climatarian Kitchen’s sustainable, surplus supply chains. Our net-zero kitchen and company van also run on solar power, following renovations in 2025, offering a drastically reduced carbon footprint relative to traditional catering options.

This year, we enjoyed a few upgrades, including a larger-capacity restaurant, newly named “The Brookman” after a generous donation to Waterperry Opera Festival by Graham Brookman. We also trialed an in-house wine bar, courtesy of Oxford Bar Company, which allowed us to increase offerings and decrease wait times for a selection of wines by the glass during dinner.  

Climatarian Kitchen, led by acclaimed chef and founder of CookSchool, Gregg Brown, the Brookman opened for 7 of the 9 festival performance days, offering seated dining and a luxurious three-course meal during the intermission. The only exception was the hottest day of 2026 so far, during which our dinner service was shifted to pre-show, in order to delay the audience’s exposure to the brutal sun trap of the Waterperry amphitheatre. 

Only steps away from La Boheme, running the Brookman was an absolutely magical experience, especially as we welcomed new faces and saw an almost 15% increase in Restaurant bookings relative to 2025. 

Sustainable Luxury

Our menus showcased the very best of local, seasonal ingredients including venison from our long term partners, Wild Venison and Game located just around the corner in Woodeaten and Oxford Blue from the Oxford Cheese Company alongside produce saved by the award winning Oxford Food Hub, the Overall winner of the Oxford Climate Awards in 2025.   Every evening our diners also enjoyed food grown by communities in Oxfordshire, including surplus from Rose Hill Junior Youth Club allotment, currently on break and unable to use the abundant late summer harvest.  

Stand out favourites from last years’ menu returned including a beetroot tart, Thai gazpacho,  bruschetta, and Oxford Blue salad. Responding to 2025 feedback from we elevated this years’ offerings and rolled out a wider variety of animal based proteins including salmon, lamb, venison, chicken, beef, and pork. We tried to push the flavour profiles of our dishes as well, taking inspiration from Italian, Thai, French, Irish, Moroccan, Mexican, and American cuisines in creating a new and exciting journey for the tastebuds each evening. Dinners concluded with beautiful, exciting puddings ranging from saffron poached pears to white chocolate mousse tiramisu, lemon posset, key lime pie and pistachio tarts with dulce de leche. 

Many of our over 200 restaurant bookings were returning diners during the festival as they attended not only La Boheme on the main stage but also the Elixir of Love in the amphitheatre. 

This year, we took care not to repeat dishes, with the exception of a very popular vegan Thai gazpacho starter, garnished with mange tout, made using lemongrass and kefir lime as well as coconut milk, fresh vine-ripened tomatoes, and English cucumbers. This fusion cold soup, served in china tea cups was, designed to break the heat, was described as “excellent”. Our guest feedback revealed an appreciation for the variety of options as well as quality and presentation (an average rating of over 4 out of 5 marks).

“Perfect for the event”
“Lovely service, thank you”
“We appreciate dining here. See you next year.”

Diners enjoying our services at Waterperry Opera Festival

The highest praise, unsurprisingly, came for our service, led by Front of House Janet Cox, whose attention to detail, from decor to makeshift air conditioners, to bespoke ice-cold Daylesford grape juice spritzers, elevated the evening for all. We reused the same decorations as last year, using the paper flowers made from donated music sheets and Daylesford tea tins, driving home the luxury circularity can provide when done tastefully and thoughtfully. 

Savona also delivers, yet again

Our long-term partner, Savona Foodservice, once again transported our kitchen to the field for setup. They provided a driver and tail lift vehicle, loading our kitchen in Kidlington and driving to Wheatley and back again, as they did last year. This type of support is instrumental as it prevents risks of lifting equipment and strain on electronics designed to move upright. The donation also keeps operational costs low not only for Cherwell Collective but also for Waterperry Opera Festival, a fellow not-for-profit with the shared goal of increasing accessibility and keeping costs as low as possible.

This year, Savona’s load was a bit heavier as we took responsibility and set up our hamper stall as well, including a warmer for bread and our repurposed market stall crates, which became the new hamper boxes this year in an attempt to reduce single use packaging in our offerings. Our staff hand-delivered hampers to guests around the grounds, especially in the picnic pavilion, where diners could enjoy hampers and pop to the Brookman for drinks. 

As the Picnic Pavilion sold out multiple nights in 2026, we recommend booking early for 2027. Our hampers were not in as high demand as in 2025, selling just under 200 across the festival.

Savona and Cherwell Collective could not have done it without the incredible support of Hays UK this year. We were fortunate to have such a fantastic recruitment team, who not only supported team bonding and leadership development, but also helped organise items so they could be safely loaded onto the transport truck. They also coordinated the movement of supplies from our other storage locations, ensuring that as much of what we need at Waterperry is either already there or stored at WISH for quick and easy access.

Teamwork makes the dream work

Serving a high-quality three-course meal in a field kitchen during record-breaking temperatures is, to say the least, not easy. But somehow, our inestimable Cherwell Collective team manages to pull off incredible feats and raise the bar each year. 

A team of over 40 volunteers, cooperating volunteers, work placement trainees, casual staff, and core leadership made our restaurant possible. We worked for months sourcing equipment, perfecting recipes, and streamlining operational plans to provide the best service possible with the limitations a circular system can impose. 

Our efforts were well met, as the new Waterperry Festival CEO John Savournin displayed calm, cool, and collected leadership to set the tone for an excellent collaboration. In addition to our increased bookings this year, we also had more walk-in diners, and through strong communication, our teams were able to exceed our goals of providing an excellent experience to ticketholders while also juggling last-minute changes and challenges coming at us from all sides (but mostly from the blazing summer sun!).  

In the restaurant world, the past 2 weeks could have been the last half of a month-long “soft opening”. The only difference is we have a year to wait before our next service now, but that doesn’t mean the work stops. We are already debriefing, looking ahead at how to improve and push ourselves further, including offering cheeseboards and more availability for walk-in diners in 2027. At Climatarian Kitchen, we believe feeding the guests at Waterperry Opera Festival is a true honor, offering the performers and our team a chance to shine. 

Looking ahead, have some essential needs to really elevate our 2027 offerings, so if you are interested in sponsoring key kitchen kit for us, or are a guest chef who would like a chance to showcase your talent one evening at the restaurant, please be in touch through our contact form.