Four days to enjoy parties, taste pairings of food and wine, demonstrations and cooking tips from Food Network chefs, and more — July 28-31.
Guy Fieri returns to Atlantic City
ATLANTIC CITY — Do you hear that rumbling rolling in from out in the distance? No, it’s not the accompanying thunder from a series of midsummer thunderstorms. What you’re noticing, should you listen carefully, is the sound of the biggest food weekend on the calendar around these parts.
Which can only mean the return of the second annual — sort of — Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. 2011 marks the “official” second year since it was formally taken under the wide-reaching Food Network festival umbrella last year.
But the event’s origins actually go back all the way to 2007, when Harrah’s Entertainment launched a two-day “Toast to the Coast” which lured 2,600 enthusiasts to town “for a fun and light-hearted weekend of food and wine” in Atlantic City.
According to a Web site description, in 2009 the festival was “redesigned and launched as the Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival benefitting Susan G. Komen for the Cure Central and South Jersey.” That year, public response grew exponentially, with more then 20,000 food-loving attendees enjoying a series of culinary parties, tasting events, wine seminars and cooking classes.
Nowadays, all four of the properties under the Caesars Entertainment banner, including Caesars, Bally’s, Harrah’s and Showboat, will play host to various functions around town. Which additionally makes this is an ideal opportunity to shed light on everything that makes Absecon Island one of America’s truly great destination areas.
Also worthy of mention is the fact that the ACF&WF is our region’s only Food Network-branded festival. Which suggests all the resources, media glare, bells and whistles that one would expect from the well-entrenched television entity.
Now, for a few more of the basic facts.
This year’s festival takes place from Thursday, July 28, through Sunday, July 31. It begins via a chic pre-party at Atlantic City’s boutique hotel, The Chelsea, with a “Bikinis and Martini’s” theme on Thursday night from 5-9pm. Guests will sample cuisine from Philly’s own “Iron Chef” Jose Garces (Amada, Distrito, Village Whiskey and five other food-related businesses) while mingling with other luminaries like Darryl Harmon, Ron Duprat and J. Geoffrey Johnson.
The Chelsea has even teamed up with internationally known beer expert — and South Jersey native — Gary Monterosso to create a signature, beer-based “Montini.”
The fashionable event takes place at The Chelsea’s posh fifth-floor Cabana Club. Lending this opening salvo an extra level of red-carpet glitz will be models outfitted in swimwear from designer Nicole Miller’s Summer 2011 collection.
The weekend’s official kick-off takes place later at The Pool at Harrah’s on Thursday night from 10pm-1am. Participating personalities will will include contestants from this season’s Food Network Star program.
Friday night’s schedule includes one of only two sold-out as of press time events: Chef Robert Irvine’s “Restaurant Invasion” at Showboat’s Casa Di Napoli from 6-9pm. This represents a homecoming of sorts for Irvine, who promises to put his own twist on foods native to the Garden State. The former Caesars executive chef currently counts three television programs under his rostrum: Dinner Impossible, Restaurant Impossible and, along with co-host Anne Burrell, The Worst Cooks in America. (See interview with Irvine at acweekly.com.)
After announcing the dates, July 26-29, Caesars Entertainment Atlantic City has announced a few of the celebrity chef participants for the Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival, namely Anne Burrell, Tom Colicchio, Robert Irvine, Aaron Sanchez, Buddy Valastro and Andrew Zimmern, with further announcements to come.
Listen to two tracks from the Texas singer-guitarist's new EP Bright Lights and see videos — and read about the man who will be in town for the music main dish of the 2011 AC Food & Wine Festival.
Atlantic City's newest oyster bar at Bally's comes from the restaurateurs whose family has run two of the city's finest food establishments for more than a century.
As the unmistakable smell of thinly cut steak and fried onions wafted through the air in the posh setting of Caesars Palladium Ballroom Friday night for Guy Fieri’s Cheesesteak Battle, fans were stuffing their faces and stuffing the ballot boxes.
The Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival got off to a fabulous start Thursday night (July 29) at the official kick-off party at the Chelsea Hotel.
Atlantic City will be the center of the culinary world when the Food Network Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival, hosted by Harrah’s Entertainment, begins with the official kick-off party at the Chelsea Hotel Thursday, July 29. Not only is this an amazing event for people who love to eat great food and mingle with culinary superstars, it also raises money for the charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure Central & South Jersey.
Triple D fans in South Jersey, get ready to have your world rocked. Guy Fieri, who will be in town July 29-Aug. 1 as a participant in the Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival, is bringing his Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives film crew with him.
The Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival was already a star-studded event with Guy Fieri, Ted Allen, Pat and Gina Neely, Anne Burrell, Sandra Lee and Alex Guarnaschelli, but this week we learned that Paula Deen is joining the party.
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1. cliff said... on Jul 31, 2011 at 10:26AM
“We were there for an hour and a half (outside! in 90 degree heat, rain, and lightning) and Guy Fieri was not even there yet. Way to whore out your name to beat your fans out of even more money guy! I'll never attend a food network event again”