{"id":47459,"date":"2025-11-13T04:17:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T04:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/47459\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T04:17:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T04:17:17","slug":"the-austin-food-wine-festival-needs-more-food-the-austin-chronicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/47459\/","title":{"rendered":"The Austin Food & Wine Festival Needs More Food \u2022 The Austin Chronicle"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ll begin by saying that the Austin Food & Wine Festival<\/a> does a lot of things right. The Auditorium Shores location offers enough space to fit the crowds with relative ease, the organizers effectively organize seating areas and water stations, and the range of chefs and wine\/beer\/spirits purveyors always represents an exciting cross-section of cuisines and drink styles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This festival has almost everything that it needs to be an unqualified success: great chefs, fun cocktails, rousing DJ sets, and educational demos. But the one thing it\u2019s missing is enough food to keep everyone satisfied from start to finish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The festival is, by nature, somewhat lopsided; there are always far more alcohol brands represented than there are restaurants. As a result, it\u2019s easy for attendees to overindulge on booze, and the situation becomes challenging when there isn\u2019t enough food to soak up the spirits and wine. On Saturday, most of the restaurant kiosks ceased serving at around 2:30pm, but the event wasn\u2019t scheduled to end until 5pm. Conditions were better on Sunday; the attendance numbers seemed slightly lower, so there was more food to go around.<\/p>\n

Playful Bites and Individual Styles\u00a0<\/p>\n

On a more positive note, the food that was available at the festival gave participating chefs a chance to really show what their restaurants are all about. At the VIP-only Made in Texas event at the Long Center on Friday night, Suerte<\/a> chef Ferm\u00edn N\u00fa\u00f1ez delighted attendees with his predictably excellent brisket tacos, while Sarah Heard and Nathan Lemley of Foreign & Domestic<\/a> served a crisp and tender fried pork rillette with an addictive pickle relish and Amanda Rockman of Rockman Coffee & Bakeshop<\/a> appealed to campfire nostalgia with her mini s\u2019mores croissant with chocolate pudding and flame-toasted meringue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some top bites from Saturday included a smoked catfish courtbouillon (a type of stew fortified with tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, and plenty of cayenne pepper) ladled over bay leaf rice from Parish Barbecue<\/a>, Krystal Craig\u2019s acclaimed chocolates from Intero<\/a> (this year\u2019s flavor selection included brown butter cacao nib and apple cider), and akami crudo with a bright aji amarillo puree from Uchi<\/a>. On Sunday, I particularly enjoyed a tender pork belly and duck terrine with pickled apples from Justine\u2019s Brasserie<\/a>, a magical \u2018ndjua-ricotta mousse served on a cannoli cracker from Casa Bianca<\/a>, and a Gulf oyster topped with apple, garlic, serrano pepper, and salt foam from Tare<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Enjoyable Spirit Activations<\/p>\n

While most of the wineries, breweries, and spirit houses poured their drinks at stands within the festival tents, a few of the larger brands took a more interactive approach. Tanqueray Classic or Nothing Diner offered the brand\u2019s classic martinis (served in very cute green-and-clear mini martini glasses) paired with perfectly crisp and playfully dressed fries (like their Dirty Martini \u2013 Caesar Loaded Fries combination). As for Maker\u2019s Mark, they chose to partner with an Austin favorite \u2013 Bad Larry Burger Club<\/a> \u2013 for their Red Camper event, which matched those burgers with Maker\u2019s old fashioneds and other bourbon drinks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Austin Food & Wine Festival<\/p>\n

A Clear Favorite at the Fire Pit<\/p>\n

The Austin Food & Wine Festival always features a Fire Pit section, where barbecue chefs get the chance to cook over open flames. Plenty of skilled smokehouses (like Mighty Quinn\u2019s BBQ in Brooklyn, Lil\u2019 Bros BBQ Shack in San Antonio, and Palmira Barbecue in Charleston) showcased their skills at the Fire Pit on Saturday and Sunday, but one name on the roster eclipsed all others and made for the longest lines of the weekend: John Bates of Interstellar BBQ<\/a>. Bates served Interstellar\u2019s rightfully lauded brisket, and the wait times stretched for well over 30 minutes for the bulk of Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More Portions or Limited Attendance<\/p>\n

Perhaps the ticket sales for Austin Food & Wine Festival\u2019s busier Saturday service need to be capped; perhaps more chefs need to be enlisted; perhaps the alcohol representation could be thinned a little. I don\u2019t know the correct answer, but as a longtime fan of the festival who treasures the high points and looks forward to each new yearly iteration, I\u2019m rooting for Austin Food & Wine to find that perfect balance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A note to readers:\u00a0Bold and uncensored,\u00a0The Austin Chronicle\u00a0has been Austin\u2019s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community\u2019s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ll begin by saying that the Austin Food & Wine Festival does a lot of things right. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,27397,134,133,27398,27399,1551,27400,8266,27401,27402,27403],"class_list":["post-47459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-food-wine-festival","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-bad-larry-burger-club","tag-casa-bianca","tag-feature","tag-foreign-domestic","tag-interstellar-bbq","tag-rockman-coffee-bakeshop","tag-suerte","tag-tare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}