Celebrity lineup: 6 top food stars coming to Palm Beach Food and Wine Festival
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This is the weekend the culinary stars align over Palm Beach and four surrounding cities. The Michelin stars. The James Beard Award winners. The Food Network celebs. The “Top Chef” alums. A constellation of them are in town for the nearly sold-out Palm Beach Food and Wine Festival, which runs from Thursday through Sunday.
Not bad for a food fest that began in 2007 as a tasting event at a Worth Avenue shopping plaza. That three-hour micro event would transform into an annual, multi-day extravaganza of celebrity-chef dinners, walk-around tastings, wine seminars, cookouts, lunches, brunches and late-night parties.
This year, there are 24 events scattered throughout Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Manalapan and Lantana.
“I’m excited for everything,” says festival director David Sabin.
Sabin helped establish the one-night tasting event when he worked with a local public relations firm. Later on his own, he grew the original event to the multi-day, star-studded festival it has been since 2011. (Technically, this is the 10th year of the festival’s extended version, if you omit its 2020 canceling due to the COVID pandemic.)
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Sabin marks the arrival of the culinary spree each year at the Four Season Resort, the festival’s host hotel.
“You start seeing the chefs checking in at the front desk or sitting by the pool. When I get there, I know it’s festival time,” he says.
Who are these luminaries that might be lounging by the pool, when they’re not finessing dishes for fest-goers this weekend?
Here are the five you may recognize at first glance.
Robert Irvine
The Food Network celebrity chef, who hosts the reality series “Restaurant: Impossible,” will headline Thursday night’s Beef N Bourbon Experience dinner (sold out) at Okeechobee Steakhouse. He’ll also teach kids’ cooking classes (sold out) at the Four Seasons Saturday morning. And Sunday, he’ll be one of three Food Network-star judges at the Grand Chef Throwdown, which closes the festival’s Grand Tasting event ($95 per person) at the Palm Beach County Convention Center.
Daniel Boulud
With restaurants and a global culinary brand, Boulud may belong to the world but he also very much belongs to Palm Beach. His chic Café Boulud at the Brazilian Court hotel in Palm Beach celebrates its 20th year in mid-January. Boulud, whose restaurant empire includes concepts in Miami, The Bahamas, Montreal, Toronto, Dubai, Singapore and aboard the Celebrity Beyond cruise ship, continues to add New York restaurants to his repertoire. In late summer, he opened Joji, an intimate Japanese omakase restaurant in midtown Manhattan. In May, he debuted a Lyonnaise spot called Le Gratin in the downtown area. Last year, he opened Le Pavillon in midtown. Boulud makes his annual appearance at the food fest Sunday, when he hosts his popular Daniel & Friends brunch (sold out) at Café Boulud.
Marc Murphy
Speaking of Food Network-star judges, chef/restaurateur Murphy is a regular on “Chopped.” He’ll join Irvine in judging the chefs’ competition at Sunday’s Grand Tasting. He’s also headlining the festival’s “Lunch with Friends” (sold out) at Meat Market Friday.
Maneet Chauhan
Meet the third celebrity judge at Sunday’s Chef Throwdown. If you’re a Food Network fan, you may know the spirited Chauhan from the “Chopped” judges’ table. The India-born chef’s hospitality group presently owns and operates three restaurants in Nashville, where she resides. Chauhan will be part of the festival’s Chillin’ N’ Grillin’ cookout (sold out) at the Eau Resort midday Saturday.
Jeremy Ford
A newly minted Michelin-starred chef (for his Miami Beach restaurant Stubborn Seed), Ford has an important link to Palm Beach County – he has a newish high-end steakhouse, The Butcher’s Club, at the PGA National Resort. You may recognize the Jacksonville native as the winner of “Top Chef” Season 13 and the host of the truTV series “Fast Foodies”. Ford earned a semifinals nod from the James Beard Foundation in February for a James Beard Award for “Best Chef” in the South. Along with fellow “Top Chef” alum and James Beard semifinalist Lindsay Autry, Ford will headline the festival’s Bubbles & Bites, A Yacht Rock Experience tasting party ($200 per person) at PGA National, home to Autry’s Honeybelle restaurant.
Ben Robinson
You may know Robinson as the yacht chef on Bravo TV’s “Below Deck” reality series. But the Broward-based TV star has culinary credentials beyond the galley. The Oxford-born chef apprenticed at the three-Michelin star restaurant The Fat Duck in Berkshire, England, and trained under master chefs in Florence. The Fort Lauderdale-based chef, now also a certified health coach, will be cooking at Thursday night’s Sustain dinner (sold out) at PB Catch.
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Palm Beach Food and Wine Festival
• The annual festival kicks off Thursday, Dec. 8, and runs through Sunday, Dec. 11.
• This year, there are 24 events scattered throughout Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Manalapan and Lantana.
Tickets and information: visit PBFoodWineFest.com
Still available: As of this writing, limited tickets were still available for the Smoke & Sunshine barbecue at Tropical Smokehouse and the Bubbles & Bites at PGA National on Saturday, and the Grand Tasting finale at the Palm Beach County Convention Center on Sunday.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Below Deck and more celebrities in Palm Beach County for food festival
