The New York City Wine & Food Festival will ditch Manhattan for the first time in 17 years and bring its showcase events to the Brooklyn waterfront – bolstering the borough’s growing epicurean bona fides.
The annual event, which runs from Oct. 17-20, will set up a giant tent at Sunset Park’s Brooklyn Army Terminal’s Invesco QQQ Campus, a 450,000 square-foot outdoor space that will host some of the world’s top chefs under one temporary roof.
“This is not an FU to Manhattan,” festival founder and director Lee Brian Schrager told Side Dish.
“We wanted to make it safer in case of rain and in one area to make it easier for everyone.”
In previous years, the event was held on Manhattan’s piers, which couldn’t be tented, and festival-goers risked getting soaked as they shuffled between various venues.
Now, ferries will shuttle foodies from Wall Street to the Brooklyn pier near 59th Street for the culinary spectacle, which drew 43,000 people last year.
Restaurateur Matthew Glazier, owner of Tiny’s Cantina — a popular spot for celebs and star athletes near Barclays Center, is looking forward to participating on his home turf.
“Brooklyn’s food scene is as diverse as its residents, making it a top culinary destination,” Glazier told Side Dish. “Post-COVID, Brooklyn’s resilience has outpaced Manhattan.”
When the NYCWFF launched 17 years ago, its signature Burger Bash event was held in Brooklyn, at a tobacco warehouse in Dumbo. So, in a sense, it is returning to its roots.
‘People said we were crazy and we couldn’t do it there, but we were well received, and we watched Brooklyn grow into one of the hottest restaurant spaces in the country,” Schrager said.
The festival won’t completely abandon Manhattan. It will host intimate brunches and dinners, and ‘midsized’ events for 600 to 1,000 people, Schrager added.
Many of them will take place at One World Trade and the nearby Hall des Lumieres New York.
The festival kicks off on Oct. 17 with Brooklyn Eats & Beats, featuring top Brooklyn chefs Esther Choi, Billy Durney, Sean Feeney, Mark Iacono, Michael Solomonov and 25 of Brooklyn’s iconic restaurants. Additional Brooklyn events will include Oyster Bash with Andrew Zimmern at Fornino Brooklyn Bridge Park and Cafe Spaghetti x Casa Mono.
Chef Bobby Flay will be returning to the festival for the first time in seven years. Other top chefs at the festival, which supports charitable partner God’s Love We Deliver, include Gabriele Bertaccini, Alex Guarnaschelli, Vikas Khanna, Duff Goldman and Geoffrey Zakarian.
Anticipated events include Ciao House: An Italian Tasting hosted by Gabriele Bertaccini and Alex Guarnaschelli inside Hall des Lumières in Lower Manhattan, a Drag Disco hosted by David Burtka and Neil Patrick Harris at The Cutting Room, the Mediterranean Mezze Brunch presented by Genova Premium Tuna hosted by Michael Symon at Hall des Lumières, A Caviar & Cocktail Affair hosted by Scott Conant and Antonia Lofaso at ASPIRE at One World Observatory and a Sunday Lunch at Le Coucou hosted by Daniel Rose, Melissa Ben-Ishay and Maddy DeVita.
The festival also includes 30 one-night only Intimate Dinners as part of the Bank of America Dinner Series, paired with high-end wines and spirits from the festival’s exclusive provider, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits. The dinners will be curated by culinary stars including Daniel Boulud, Marcus Samuelsson, Amanda Freitag, Ayesha Nurdjaja and Martha Stewart.
This year’s NYCWFF will also welcome more celebs than ever — especially those shilling their own signature booze lines. Celebs promoting their brands will include rappers Snoop Doog, Dre and 50 Cent, as well as Hollywood A-lister Blake Lively
Lively, founder of Betty Booze, will host The Betty BOOze Harvest Happy Hour at The Lawn Club in The Seaport.
“It’s just a natural next step. Chefs got into pots and pans and now celebs are getting into liquor brands,” Shrager said.
