This year marks a big milestone for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival.
It was in 2001 that the event — which had started in the late 1990s as Florida Extravaganza, a one-day wine-and-food pairing event at Florida International University — morphed into a renamed three-day culinary celebration on the sands of South Beach.
The ambitious move was the brainchild of Lee Schrager, who was then a marketing director at beverage distribution giant Southern Glazer, which sponsored the original event at FIU.
He admits it was a leap of faith — but one that quickly showed a lot of potential.
“ I spoke to my boss, who was the president of Southern Glazer at the time, and now CEO, I gave him the idea,” Schrager said. “And he said, 'Well, do it. If you believe in it, do it.' And that's exactly how it happened. There was no 5-year plan. There was no one-year plan!"
" Year one was so incredibly successful, we expected 1,000 people and we had 6,000 people," he said. "We had no tents, we weren't even thinking about rain, we weren't flying in 400 chefs from around the world."
Now, 25 years later, the four-day SOBEWFF is a destination for top chefs and food lovers from around the world, with events across Miami Beach and beyond. To mark the occasion, Schrager put more thought into this year’s festival than he did the first five years, he told WLRN.
He has gone all out to bring music into the event this year. For the opening night party, Grammy-award-winning DJ Diplo is performing, while renowned rapper Ja Rule is performing at the Goya Foods’ Grand Tasting Village on Saturday.
Diversity and Afro-Caribbean cuisine
In recent years, the festival has highlighted Black and Afro-Caribbean cuisine, showcasing the diversity of the African diaspora you find all over South Florida.
Four years ago, the festival received heavy criticism from Black chefs for not being a diverse festival. Schrager received a call from the National Association of Black Journalists about this issue and it opened his eyes.
He said he always wanted the best chefs, and he admits that he didn’t always look to see if there were enough chefs of color or female or queer chefs. Chef Marcus Samuelsson, the founder and owner of the Red Rooster Overtown, helped to make the connection, he said.
“ I also didn't know a lot of those people, I didn't know how to do an Afro-Caribbean event because I don't know the restaurants,” he said. “I do go to them now … Marcus introduced us to a whole world … He's told me what I've done right and he has told me what I've done wrong over the years.”
READ MORE: Black chefs want to diversify palates at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival
At the Red Rooster Samuelsson, who hosts the festival’s Gospel Brunch, also mentored one of the Black chefs taking part this year: Tristan Epps.
Chef Epps, who won last year's Top Chef, will be at the Las Lap Link-Up: A Celebration of Afro-Caribbean Cuisine at the Kimpton Surfcomber Hotel on Friday, Feb. 20.
Before coming to work at Red Rooster Overtown, Epps was in Denver, Colorado. Miami’s diversity enticed him. He wanted to be in a place where he could fully express his Caribbean roots: His family comes from Trinidad and Tobago.
“ I needed somewhere where I could be an islander, where I could be Caribbean, where I could hear multiple languages being spoken, where I could make food that people would relate to me more,” he said. “And it wasn't always this brand new thing that I was making where I had to completely have this whole TED Talk about this food.”
Epps attributes the growing interest on Afro-Caribbean cuisine to the platform various chefs like Samuelsson have given it.
He said that it's become increasingly exciting for audiences, especially once they realize that foods they are familiar with, like gumbo, are Afro-Caribbean dishes.
“ We started paying attention to more and then now we're like, 'Okay, it's been there this entire time,'” he said.
IF YOU GO
What: South Beach Wine and Food Festival
When: Thursday, February 19 to Sunday, February 22
Where: South Beach
Ticket Information: Here
