With The Food Network as the new title sponsor, the South Beach Wine & Food Festival returned to the southern tip of Miami Beach for its sixth year. Over 30,000 people attended the four-day festival, held from February 22 to 25, making it one of the largest and most prestigious events of its kind in the country. Amid two Grand Tastings sponsored by American Express, culinary and lifestyle seminars at the Publix Grand Tasting Village, numerous tribute brunches and dinners, after-parties galore, the first-ever Food Network Awards how (held at the Jackie Gleason Theater), and, yes, even a golf tournament (which took place at the Biltmore Hotel), it was easy to overlook the real purpose of the festival itself: to benefit the Teaching Restaurant and the Southern Wine & Spirits Beverage Management Center, both located at Florida International University. To be sure, it was wildly fun, a bit fattening, somewhat intoxicating, more than a little exhausting (at times), but always entertaining. Here is our roundup of the best of the 2007 Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival.
A Winter Wonderland South Beach-Style
BubbleQ Goes Under the Big Top
Food Network Celebrates Awards With Floral Fantasy
Stars of the Culinary World Honor Chef Eric Ripert
Veuve Clicquot Bubble Bath: A Sexy Poolside Soiree
—Bobby Killgore
Read our coverage of the 2005 and 2006 South Beach Wine and Food Festivals.
