The Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival 2024 is a highly sought-after ticket
Video: Food Network celebrity chef Robert Irvine in South Florida
Celebrity Chef Robert Irvine at the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach at the 2016 Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival.
The country’s most famous and oldest food festival has started ticket sales alongside its brand new culinary events program for 2024.
In December, the 17th annual Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival returns to Palm Beach County. The festival is known for its immersive dining experiences, featuring an all-star lineup of renowned chefs and culinary personalities hosting everything from live cooking demonstrations and wine tastings to intimate chef-led workshops and private dinners.
The festival kicks off on Thursday, December 12th with dozens of events hosted by some of Palm Beach’s hottest establishments and a culinary program featuring new chefs and venues. The event concludes on Sunday, December 15th with a record-breaking roster of over 100 wineries during the festival’s final major wine tasting at the Palm Beach County Convention Center.
For intimate events, tickets sell out quickly
The festival program this year includes 25 events, some of which are new. As in years past, several long-time favorites are already sold out, including the festival’s opening dinner at Buccan, Friday night’s Shabbat dinner hosted by Aioli, and the Founders’ Dinner at La Sirena.
According to David Sabin, founder of the Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival, the focus on offering exclusive, smaller events is part of the festival’s appeal.
“We’ve stayed true to our original vision and many of these events are still very intimate, so they sell out quickly,” says Sabin. “I always advise people to act fast – especially this year.”
Don’t know where to start? To point you in the right direction, we asked the festival’s founder for some tips on selecting events for the 2024 Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival.
Festival favorites offer meet-and-greets with well-known chefs
For nearly 20 years, the Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival has welcomed a number of celebrated culinary favorites, many of whom participate in the festival’s most popular events each year.
While some of the multi-course dinners throughout Palm Beach County are already sold out, Sabin recommends a popular dish: dinner at Florie’s ($275 per person).
The five-course dinner will take place at the festival’s oldest partner hotel, the Four Seasons Resort in Palm Beach, and will be hosted by chef and partner Mauro Colagreco. The dinner will showcase Colagreco’s open-fire cooking skills and place an emphasis on his multicultural vision, an approach that has earned his concepts numerous accolades, including multiple Michelin stars and inclusion in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.
“It’s an incredible opportunity to have a chef of this caliber in our county hosting a banquet here,” Sabin says.
But one of his favorites remains the walkaround event with Chef Daniel Boulud, who is hosting a Daniel and Friends Brunch ($250 per person) at his Palm Beach restaurant for the 13th consecutive year.
The event at Café Boulud will be co-hosted by Christopher Zabita, Café Boulud’s newly appointed executive chef, who will join Boulud himself in serving popular breakfast dishes and inventive cocktails.
Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival welcomes a new chef and new events
When it comes to choosing events, you can’t go wrong with any of the four brand new experiences added to this year’s schedule, including a dinner, lunch, brunch and a walkaround mix-and-mingle event.
“The best thing about the festival is the connections we get to make. This applies to both the chefs from all over the country and the camaraderie they experience while cooking together, as well as the visitors who get to meet and interact with them,” says Sabin.
NiMo’s brand-new lunch special ($225 per person) will spotlight Miami chef Niven Patel, who opened his first restaurant in Palm Beach County earlier this year. He will cook alongside Ayesha Nurdjaja, a 2022 James Beard Award nominee for Best Chef: New York State, and Broward County’s Timon Balloo, who will prepare an extravagant four-course brunch.
For Sabin, a new dining experience at Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa will also serve to shine a spotlight on one of the country’s least-known restaurants: Polpo.
At dinner at Polpo, guests join Chicago chefs Joe Flamm and Sarah Grueneberg, along with Miami chef Giorgio Rapicavoli and host chef Neall Bailey for a dinner that pairs authentic Italian dishes with seafood and excellent wines.
Taste hundreds of premium wines at the grand wine tasting
Don’t miss the Grand Tasting ($229 per person), the festival’s closing event where attendees can eat, drink and socialize to their heart’s content.
During the four-hour event, unlimited tastings will be served at over 60 stations manned by the region’s best chefs, along with wine and spirits tastings. The highlight of the afternoon is the Grand Chef Throwdown, where three local chefs will compete for the $10,000 charity prize, judged this year by celebrity chefs Maneet Chauhan and Robert Irvine.
The best part, however, may be the wine. In 2022, the festival announced its official partnership with Wine Spectator, a powerful move that has allowed the event to offer festival-goers a wide selection of the world’s best wines.
“There is no other event in Palm Beach County that can compete with this festival when it comes to wine,” says Sabin.
The partnership gives the festival’s wine program another boost, which will be most evident at the closing event. This year, over 100 wineries – compared to just 12 at the 2022 event – will only serve wines rated over 90 points by Wine Spectator.
“And even though we expanded the wine and food offerings and created a larger venue on the first floor of the convention center, we weren’t able to increase the number of attendees,” Sabin summarizes. “Imagine it being just as exclusive, but a better experience overall.”
Tickets for the Palm Beach Wine & Food Festival
Tickets for the Palm Beach Wine & Food Festival are on sale now and range from $50 to $325 per person, depending on the event. To get the most bang for your buck, ticket package options include a 15% discount when purchasing 4 tickets or 10% when purchasing three tickets. There is also an early bird ticket option for $149 per person for Sunday’s Grand Tasting, available through September 30, 2024.
