Hungry fans, chefs, and food and beverage brands ate their hearts out at the seventh annual New York City Wine & Food Festival, held October 16 to 19. The four-day festival, with Food Network as its title sponsor, featured dinners, tastings, late-night parties, and seminars at venues across the city, with popular events like the Blue Moon Burger Bash and the Grand Tasting presented by ShopRite taking place at Piers 92 and 94 in Midtown.
This year’s program boasted more than 25 intimate dinners with renowned chefs, such as David Bouley and Yotam Ottolenghi, along with a special dinner celebrating the 40th anniversary of Le Cirque restaurant, as part of the Bank of America Dinner Series. Organizers also introduced several new events, including Hot Dog Happy Hour with Mo Rocca, Dominique Ansel’s Wonderland, and Down-Home Country Brunch hosted by Trisha Yearwood.
Fan favorites, such as Jets & Chefs: The Ultimate Tailgate hosted by Mario Batali and Tacos & Tequila: A Late Night Fiesta hosted by Bobby Flay, returned to the lineup, as well. Meatopia X: The Carnivore’s Ball hosted by Michael Symon closed out the foodie festival; the meat-centric gathering saw chefs cooking beef, pork, lamb, poultry, and wild game over live wood fires, with celebrity butcher Pat LaFrieda cooking and serving the pièce de résistance—a 1,000-pound steer.
In addition to the top-notch cooking, brands, sponsors, and partners, such as Delta, J.C. Penney, KitchenAid, and Ronzoni, presented customized activations and integrations that catered to each event's crowd and theme.
All proceeds from the festival benefit hunger relief organizations No Kid Hungry and Food Bank for New York City.
With football season in full swing, Beanitos staff, dressed as referees, handed out tailgate-friendly samples and posed for photo ops at the Grand Tasting.
Similar to the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, Esurance's SavorBand kiosks let guests tap N.F.C.-enabled bracelets to receive recipes and other information from vendors.
For the second year, the Travel Channel's Andrew Zimmern hosted an Oktoberfest-theme affair at Long Island City beer hall the Garden at Studio Square. Thanks to Samuel Adams, attendees sported traditional Bavarian hats in honor of the German festival.
Yoplait Greek invited festival guests to vote for their favorite yogurt in a taste-off at the Esurance Rooftop at Pier 92. The rooftop space was used for a number of events during the festival's run, including the Blue Moon Burger Bash, Ronzoni's La Sagra Slices, Tacos & Tequila: A Late Night Fiesta, and Meatopia X: The Carnivore’s Ball.
For Jets & Chefs: The Ultimate Tailgate, the cruise line served football-friendly Kobe beef hot dogs with pickled vegetables and push pops filled with chocolate mousse and crushed Oreos. Celebrity was also promoting its four-night NY Jets Cruise featuring current and former players onboard, which takes place March 26 to 30, 2015.
For the kid-friendly Jets & Chefs event, Ronzoni set up a station for younger football fans to create works of pasta art.
Thrillist's fifth annual Barbecue & the Blues was hosted by the cast of Food Network's The Kitchen (Katie Lee, Marcela Valladolid, Sunny Anderson, Geoffrey Zakarian, and Jeff Mauro). Guests were issued "passports" with perforated tickets, each adorned with tiny animal icons, that were used to redeem one dish from each station. The black token coin was used to vote for their favorite dishes, as part of the event's annual competition.
The media group offered branded stain-remover pens for the barbecue-sauce-loving crowd, along with mint and toothpick packs. Sweet Chick was voted "Best in BBQ" by The Kitchen cast and guests.
At the Grand Tasting presented by ShopRite, the pasta brand showed off its brand-new trailer—a renovated shipping container with a high-tech kitchen. Barilla hopes to build more of these mobile units in order to do demonstrations across the country, as well as to offer help to charities like Meals on Wheels.
Throughout the two-day Grand Tasting event, Barilla chefs prepared 20- to 30-minute recipes to promote the brand's pasta, as well as a new pesto product, which will be available next year.
To support the premiere of Cutthroat Kitchen: Superstar Sabotage, Food Network created an interactive activation for the special series. Prior to the Grand Tasting event, a glass-paneled truck, which resembled a briefcase, drove around New York with Cutthroat Kitchen dollar bills blowing around inside. At the Grand Tasting, participants had a chance to go inside the truck for 30 seconds to grab the bills.
In the spirit of the show, each participant also had to spin the "sabotage" wheel, which would determine their sabotage for the 30 seconds (e.g. you can only use oven mitts, you have to wear an eye patch, or you may have your hands cuffed together). The bills collected could be exchanged for real dollar bills.
This year at the Grand Tasting, Delta highlighted its farm-to-tray-table approach and its relationship with nutritious culinary partner Luvo. The space at Pier 92 featured onboard wines and mini wraps and snacks by Luvo. In addition, Delta flight attendants were on site to greet guests and hand out branded wine lanyards. Attendees could also enter for a chance to win a pair of economy round-trip tickets.
At the Grand Tasting, culinary demonstrations took place on the stage outfitted by KitchenAid appliances. The brand also used the event as an opportunity to get valuable feedback from the chefs who used the equipment throughout the festival.
At the Grand Tasting, representatives from Mexico City were on hand to promote the city as a destination for conferences as well as a vacation spot. Guests could enter a chance to win a trip south of the border.
Well-known Mexico City chefs Azari Cuenca, Alejandro Ruiz, and Daniel Telle served authentic regional cuisine with a modern twist, such as a Mexican mincemeat wonton.
J.C. Penney showcased its new Possibilities furniture line, along with Halloween decor and a festive photo op, at Ronzoni’s La Sagra Slices, the Blue Moon Burger Bash, Jets & Chefs, and Meatopia X.
Artist Mr. Cheng demonstrated his paper-cutting skills by creating portraits of attendees as part of the store's activation at the festival.
At several of the festival's signature events, Groupon offered a fun interactive station where guests received silk-screened tote bags highlighting the discount site's offers for food, restaurants, spas, sport events, and more.
Mohegan Sun's Cigars & Spirits event featured cigar rolling experts, along with spirit brands, including Beam, Heaven Hill, Four Roses, Ole Smokey Tennessee Moonshine, and Stolen Rum.
