It’s the weekend when culinary stars align with Palm Beach and 4 surrounding cities. Michelin stars. James Beard Award winners. Food Network celebrities. The alumni of “Top Chef”. A constellation of them is in the city. for the nearly sold-out Palm Beach Food and Wine Festival, which runs Thursday through Sunday.
Not bad for a food festival that in 2007 was a tasting occasion at a shopping mall on Worth Avenue. This three-hour micro-occasion would become a multi-day annual grand spectacle with celebrity chef dinners, tastings, wine seminars, barbecues, lunches, brunches and evening evenings.
This year, there are 24 events spread across Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Manalapan and Lantana.
“I’m excited about everything,” says director David Sabin.
Sabin helped arrange the evening tasting occasion when she worked with a local PR firm. Later, it transformed the original occasion into a star-studded multi-day festival since 2011. (Technically, this is the tenth year of the extended edition of the festival, if you forget about its cancellation in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. )
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Sabin marks the arrival of the year of culinary frenzy at the Four Season Resort, the festival’s host hotel.
“You start seeing the chefs checking into the front desk or sitting by the pool. When I get there, I know it’s festival time,” he says.
Who are those luminaries who sunbathe in the pool, when they are fine-tuning the dishes of this weekend’s parties?
Here are the five you would possibly recognize at first glance.
The celebrated chef of Food Network, who hosts the truth series “Restaurant: Impossible,” will headline Thursday night’s Beef N Bourbon Exconsistent withience dinner (sold out) at Okeechobee Steakhouse. It will also offer sold-out children’s cooking categories at the Four Seasons on Saturday morning. And on Sunday, he’ll be one of three Star Food Network judges at Grand Chef Throwdown, which closes the festival’s Grand Tasting event ($95 depending on the day) at the Palm Beach County Convention Center.
With places to eat and a global culinary brand, Boulud would possibly belong to the global but also belongs very much to Palm Beach. Its elegant Café Boulud at the Brazilian Court Hotel in Palm Beach celebrates its 20th anniversary in mid-January. The empire of places to eat includes concepts in Miami, the Bahamas, Montreal, Toronto, Dubai, Singapore and, aboard the Celebrity Beyond cruise ship, continues to add places to eat in New York to its repertoire. Last summer, he opened Joji, an intimate Japanese omakase in midtown Manhattan. In May, he opened a place in Lyon called Le Gratin in the city center. Last year, he opened Le Pavillon in the center. Boulud makes his annual appearance at the food festival on Sunday, when he presents his popular Daniel brunch.
Speaking of the judgments of Food Network stars, chef/restaurateur Murphy is a regular on “Chopped. “out) festival on Meat Market Friday.
Meet the third standout judge at Sunday’s Chef Throwdown. If you’re a fan of Food Network, you might know the energetic Chauhan from the “Chopped” judging table. The Indian-born chef’s lately owned and operates 3 restaurants in Nashville, where he resides. Chauhan will be part of the Chillin ‘N’ Grillin’ (sold out) fried fish festival at the Eau Resort on Saturday lunchtime.
A new Michelin-starred chef (for his Stubborn Seed restaurant in Miami Beach), Ford has a vital connection to Palm Beach County: He has a new luxury steakhouse, The Butcher’s Club, at PGA National Resort. You may recognize the Jacksonville venue as the winner of season thirteen of “Top Chef” and the host of the truTV series “Fast Foodies. “Top Chef Alumnus Lindsay Autry and James Beard semifinalist Ford to headline Bubbles tasting night
He would probably meet Robinson as a yacht chef in the Bravo TV truth series “Below Deck. “But the Broward-based TV star has culinary credentials beyond cooking. The Oxford-born chef was apprenticed at the three-Michelin-starred restaurant The Fat Duck. in Berkshire, England, and trained through master chefs in Florence. The Fort Lauderdale-based chef, now also a qualified fitness trainer, will cook at Thursday night’s (sold out) Sustain dinner at PB Catch.
• The annual festival begins on Thursday, December 8 and continues through Sunday, December 11.
• This year, there are 24 occasions spread across Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Manalapan and Lantana.
Tickets and information: PBFoodWineFest. com
Still to be achieved: at the time of writing, there were still limited tickets for the Smoke BBQ