In its fifth year, the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival runs May 28-31 in Midtown, with tickets on sale later today and early bird pricing through March 16.
Billed as a “decadent weekend of Southern food and drink,” the event features tents with culinary “trails,” and three days of classes, dinners and events with Southern chefs and food and beverage experts.
The festival was founded in 2010 by Dominique Love and Elizabeth Feichter.
In a phone call earlier this week, Feichter laughed and said, “It is year five. We made it. We’re pretty proud of ourselves. And we have a whole host of delicious programing for everyone again this year.”
Asked to reflect on the history of the festival up to this point, Feichter called it “inspiring.”
“It’s jaw-dropping if I step back and look at all of the things that happened over the last five years. How it’s grown a following of people who are passionate about food and beverage and are excited about having it in their backyard. Atlanta is the gateway to the culinary South. And it’s a perfect convening place to come together and create a weekend that opens peoples eyes, minds and mouths to the flavors across the South.”
Asked what’s changed at the festival since the beginning, Feichter said the format has remained the same but the content has shifted every year.
“From the beginning, we spent a good amount of time with our advisors and founders council thinking about what we wanted the festival to be. We wanted it to be a multi-day experience that would have Phd programming for food lovers. We loved the idea of the learning experiences in the classrooms, and the tasting experiences in the tents, and the dinners and events around town.
That hasn’t changed. What changes every year is the content. The things that people are thinking about comes out in our programing. This year it’s sustainable seafood, and you’ll see that in the classrooms and the offerings in the tasting tents and evening events.”
Atlanta Food & Wine Festival tickets range from single tasting tent ($100) and day passes ($155, early bird) to the ultimate Connoisseur 3-day pass ($1,700 early bird). Buy them here .
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