The lineup for the third annual Food & Wine Classic this Nov. 13-15 is one to get excited about with acclaimed local and national chefs, beverage experts and speakers, including author and former vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee, Kat Kinsman, and editor-in-chief of Food & Wine Magazine, Hunter Lewis.
Kinsman, who will be joining local celebrity chef Amethyst Ganaway and recent James Beard Hall of Fame inductee, Sallie Ann Robinson, for their cooking demo, “Grown, Gathered, and Told: The Flavorful Story of Gullah Geechee Cuisine,” said what she is most looking forward to at this year’s event is, “Getting to connect with chefs and beverage folks I don't get to see often. It’s a thrill, especially at the Oyster Roast, which last year featured the best food I've ever had at a festival. It awes me that we'll have both Martin Yan and Amethyst Ganaway onstage. They're a couple of my culinary heroes who represent the best of food's power to share history, tradition and place.”
For Kinsman, Charleston is the ideal setting for the Food & Wine Classic because, “Lowcountry is probably my favorite cuisine – one bite into a shrimp or oyster dish there, you know exactly where you are. Chefs at fine-dining restaurants, oyster houses, barbecue joints, legendary soul food establishments and beloved neighborhood haunts have a particular intent with their dishes, grounded in reverence for the farmers, fishers and artisans who provide the ingredients, and in the history that brought them to this delicious moment.”
For first time attendees, Kinsman suggested prioritizing a few events while leaving room for surprise and delight. “You never know if the stranger next to you will invite you along to a new favorite place, or if you'll stumble into a once-in-a-lifetime adventure with your favorite chef — the kind of thing that can only happen at the Classic. We make sure there are no bad moves when it comes to events, so any room in which you end up is the room where you were meant to be.”
With bangs and a bun on top, Kinsman is pretty easy to spot in a crowd. “Connecting folks is my greatest pleasure, so if you see me, don't hesitate to come up and say hi,” she said.
Behind the scenes, Lewis collaborates with the events team to bring Food & Wine to life in Charleston, engaging the chefs and talent and curating the topics of conversations and experiences. During the festival, he’s out in front, serving as co-host alongside his colleagues Jacqui Gifford and Sid Evans, editors-in chief of Travel + Leisure and Southern Living.
The goal every year, he said, is to celebrate the people and culture that make Charleston so dynamic while hosting an experience that can’t be found anywhere else.
“The best part of the Classic is seeing the incredible mix of chefs, winemakers, writers and food lovers come together in one of our favorite cities on earth and make connections we couldn’t have planned,” he said.
For this year’s event, Lewis said he is most excited about several new additions, such as an oyster farm tour where guests can get closer to the ingredients that make this region so special and learn from the people who harvest and cook them. Additionally, this year’s Classic will offer hands-on holiday workshops for floral arranging, sweetgrass weaving and biscuit making.
Lewis added that he’s also looking forward to the Future of Barbecue panel presented by local chefs Shuai Wang and pitmaster Hector Garate, along with Sarah Thomas and Rick Martinez.
“The magic is in finding ideas that are specific to Charleston and to this particular moment in food, drink and travel culture, then bringing together people who can make those experiences come to life,” he said.
While visiting Charleston, he plans to enjoy a pint of Guinness and roasted oysters next to the fire -and any wine Bethany Heinze from Vern’s or Yoyo Tang from Chubby Fish recommend. “I trust them implicitly and always leave their restaurants happy,” he said.
One of his favorite memories of the last two Classics was last year, when local celebrity Charlton Singleton surprised Alexander Smalls onstage with a trumpet solo from Porgy and Bess during Lewis’s presentation with Smalls at the overlapping Charleston Literary Festival.
“I also can’t recommend the Charleston Literary Festival enough –what Executive Director Sarah Moriarity and her team are building there is second to none, and we’re grateful to overlap and collaborate with the Literary Festival again this year to bring chef Kwame Onwuachi to the stage to talk about his new cookbook, ‘All Hours.’”
“The City That Rice Built” conversation and lunch from the Classic’s inaugural year also stands out as a special memory for Lewis. “That topic still resonates because it showed what this event can do at its best: bring people together around food while going much deeper into history, culture and place,” he said. “We produced the feature story as a love letter to the region and it won Food & Wine its first National Magazine Award.”
“What makes the Classic special isn’t just a roster of big names coming to Charleston,” he said. “The city becomes the stage –the local talent and their hospitality is what makes this event unlike anything else in the country.”
He continued, “Charleston has one of the most dynamic food communities in the country. Food is inseparable from its history and culture, particularly the Gullah Geechee traditions that have shaped the way the region grows, cooks and eats. So no matter how programmed we are throughout the Classic, from morning until late night, you have to leave some room for an adventure.”
To learn more about the Food & Wine Classic lineup and purchase tickets, visit foodandwineclassicincharleston.com/.
"The goal every year is to celebrate the people and culture that make Charleston so dynamic while hosting an experience that can’t be found anywhere else." Hunter Lewis - editor-in-chief of Food & Wine Magazine