Sustainable chef and entrepreneur Pippa Lovell continues to make her mark in the culinary world as she is set to attend a festival in Ireland.

‘Beyond the Pale’ is a three-day music, arts, and wellness festival held at Glendalough Estate in Wicklow, from June 12 to 14.

Pippa is originally from Leicester, however, she is well known across the island for her culinary skills and past restaurant endeavours such as Versa in Port Erin.

She was also a contestant on BBC series ‘MasterChef: The Professionals’ in 2024.

Pippa said: ‘​The organiser a renowned writer Ali Dunworth reached out and invited me to be a key note speaker on the "Beyond the Plate" stage alongside some huge names.

Festivals like this are always looking for voices that push the boundaries of traditional food culture, and my work with wild food, sustainability, and sensory-led experiences aligned perfectly with what they wanted to bring to the line-up this year.’

She will be showing spectators the power of ‘hedgerow goodies’ alongside discussing Manx and Irish folklore.

Part of Pippa’s panel, which is titled - ‘Witchy Weeds & Wonder’, will see her help the audience concoct their own personalised vodka tinctures which can either be drank immediately to soak up the interesting flavours or four weeks after the festival to feel the benefits as a remedy.

Flourish IOM is Pippa’s buisness and is a culmination of everything Pippa has learned throughout her career as a chef, forager, activisit and herbalist. She describes it as her passion project.

She said, ‘The Isle of Man is my canvas and the ultimate inspiration for everything I do. Through flourish I am already running sensory-led culinary experiences, wild foraging tours, and botanical workshops.

I’m always evolving these concepts, and my goal is to keep creating immersive, world-class events on-island that celebrate our unique landscape and encourage people to reconnect with the land around them and eating our way to biodiversity.’

Opening Versa in Port Erin put Pippa on a global stage, gaining worldwide recognition for her ‘radical approach to sustainability, foraging and celebrating the islands UNESCO Biosphere.’

Speaking on the closure of Versa she said, ‘I took a step back from the kitchen to spend a year in the UK for deeply personal reasons, specifically to care for my dad. That period of transition allowed me to look at food through a wider lens and shifted my career into a much more holistic approach to sustainability.

It became less about the high-pressure restaurant grid and more about small, meaningful connections.’

One of the things Pippa is most excited about when it comes to participating in Beyond the Pale is sharing how easily a person can connect to nature through their senses rather than following rigid recipes.

‘I’ll be diving into how our rich Manx folklore intertwines deeply with the natural landscape and the old ways of foraging. I’ll be sharing how traditional stories dictate how we interact with certain plants, the respect we owe to the land, and how ancient superstitions actually hold a lot of wisdom when it comes to living sustainably and harmoniously with the changing seasons.’

Traditional Manx herb Bollan Bane will be used by Pippa.