Hawaii Food and Wine Festival 2018 packed with talent

The Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival (HFWF) is back for its eighth year!

This year, there’s an additional 20 stellar chefs—including Mike Bagale, who just stepped down as executive chef of Alinea, and Bocuse d’Or-winning chef Mathew Peters—making their festival debut.

They join 100 other chefs, 30 winemakers, 5 sommeliers and 20 mixologists appearing at 11 spectacular venues on three islands from Oct. 6 to 28. Tickets are on sale now at www.HFWF.me.

After an exciting launch on May 9—honoring influential, maverick chef Jeremiah Tower at the festival’s first Culinary Heroes event at the Kahala Hotel & Resort—the festival is ready to roll, with chefs from Hawai‘i and around the world preparing dishes highlighting the Islands’ high-quality and diverse ingredients.

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“We’re excited about this year’s lineup,” said festival CEO Denise Yamaguchi, who develops the program with festival co-chairs and founders chef Roy Yamaguchi and chef Alan Wong.

“The crop of new participants is a diverse, innovative group, which is important to the festival at a time when the restaurant industry is addressing contemporary social issues.

“Closer to home, as we approach our eighth year, the festival’s impact can be seen in the increasingly high profile of Hawai‘i as a culinary destination and awareness of its agricultural products—which has been the heart of its mission since it launched in 2011.”

New chefs this year include Nyesha Arrington, a Top Chef alum whom Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold calls “a force in Los Angeles cooking” whose multicultural creations “taste like LA,” and Mike Bagale, who rocked the American restaurant scene when he announced his departure from acclaimed Chicago restaurant Alinea via Instagram in May, to take time off to travel. He hasn’t yet talked about his next project, and in the meantime, the festival is honoured to welcome him—especially since he is a surfer and has professed an affinity for Pacific ingredients.

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The festival begins Oct. 6 on the Island of Hawai‘i, with Under the Tuscan Sun, which starts with a relaxing cocktail hour on the lush grounds of the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort on the Kona coast. Guests then move indoors to a lavishly decorated room for a sit-down dinner where six chefs—along with Yamaguchi and Wong—prepare Tuscan dishes in full view. Courses are paired with the best wines central Italy has to offer.

The festival continues Oct. 19 to 21 on Maui with three events—Roy’s 21st Annual Golf Classic at Ka‘anapali Golf Courses; Spiked! at the Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa; and Symphony of Flavors at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa.

Then the festival culminates with five days on O‘ahu, ranging from the urban event Howard Hughes Corporation Presents Crops & Hops in the heart of the booming, redeveloped neighbourhood Kaka‘ako, to Decadence—an indulgent evening at Ko Olina Resort, with guests enjoying a beachside sit-down dinner overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

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The culinary sparks will fly at the festival’s Saks Fifth Avenue Presents Halekulani Masters Gala—A Tribute to Paul Bocuse at the five-star Halekulani hotel on Oct. 28. The highly influential French chef died in January, and chefs Yamaguchi and Wong, who both are lauded for fusing French technique with an Island vernacular in their Hawaiian Regional Cuisine cooking, immediately knew the annual gala should honour him.

In addition, last year the U.S. won the prestigious Bocuse d’Or culinary competition for the first time, and the festival is thrilled to announce that team leader Mathew Peters will be in the all-star chef lineup, along with Bagale, Michael Cimarusti (Providence in Los Angeles), François Payard (Payard in New York City), Alexandre Trancher (Halekulani), and Tetsuya Wakuda (Tetsuya’s in Sydney, Australia).

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See the full event lineup.

See the full lineups of chefs, sommeliers, winemakers and mixologists.

Stay connected with the Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival via its revamped website www.HFWF.me or follow HFWF on Twitter/Instagram @HIFoodWineFest and Facebook at hawaiifoodandwinefestival.

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Aloha Down Under Hawaii Food and Wine Festival