The Food & Wine Festival – Palm Desert gathers the brightest and most inspired chefs from California for two extraordinary days of culinary and wine tasting. This event is uniquely educational in focus, showcasing the Coachella Valley as a culinary destination.
Another unique aspect of the festival is that each restaurant has provided their menu in advance so that a team of experts can specifically pair their cuisine with a particular varietal or brand that most compliments the food they are serving. Each attendee’s palate will take a euphoric journey through the festival space as each winery will be placed adjacent to the restaurant it is paired with for maximum culinary impact.
The Food and Wine Festival Palm Desert is conveniently paired with Fashion Week El Paseo in late March, offering visitors yet another reason to come to Palm Desert in the spring.
The culinary event, which runs March 27-29, promises to be bigger, better and will feature more women chefs. It will be held underneath the huge white Ferguson Grand Tasting Tent on Larkspur Lane off El Paseo in Palm Desert.
“We’re going to have an amazing year,” predicted event co-producer Tony Marchese, co-owner of Trio and Purple Palm restaurants in Palm Springs. and co-producer
Organizers say the Food and Wine Festival not only satisfies tastebuds with its wine, craft beer and food tasting events, but also educates attendees with cooking demonstrations, seminars, and industry insider panels.
There’s also a marketplace where attendees can purchase culinary-related goods and bottles of wine they’ve tasted, with some of the proceeds going to charity. “It’s kind of a shopping experience,” Marchese said. “If you taste something in the grand tasting you like, go into the marketplace and buy it, you’ll be helping a charity,”