Experience the Magic at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen

Dear Pros,

Hunter here. Happy weekend to you. We kicked off the 2025 event season with a bang earlier this month at Ojai Food + Wine, where I witnessed California legends Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower reunite unexpectedly. The duo responsible for fomenting an American culinary revolution in the 1970s at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, had not spoken for more than a decade and weren't scheduled to be on any panels together. But Waters walked into a reception that Tower was hosting and their supposed cold war turned into a warm embrace. Call it Krug Champagne diplomacy.

Later that night at a dinner cooked by my mentor Jonathan Waxman, alongside 1990 F&W Best New Chef Nancy Silverton, Evan Funke, and the Italian chef Sarah Cicolini, Waters was emotional about the reunion. She told her friend Ruth Reichl she wanted to say something to her tablemates about letting bygones be bygones. The gist was that life is short, Alice said. "Love wins."

More serendipity unfurled the next night at a F&W Best New Chefs Alumni Dinner at Ojai Valley Inn's Farmhouse with 2020 BNC Daisy Ryan, 2004 BNC Melissa Perello, 2013 BNC Justin Cogley, 2019 BNC Matthew Kammerer, 2018 BNC Jon Yao, 2017 BNC Val Cantú, and 2023 BNC Eunji Lee. Even though some of the chefs had never met before, they harmonized with California ingredients like asparagus, spot prawns, and tangerines to create a sublime seven-course menu. Ryan's team from Bell's in Los Alamos and Yao's team from Kato in Los Angeles helped keep dinner on track and glasses full of wines from Joseph Phelps.

I'm not name dropping here. My point is that magic happens when you put talented people who share the common bond in beautiful spaces together, whether it's an impromptu meeting of two culinary greats or a reunion of Best New Chefs alumni. The weekend in Ojai felt like an adult culinary summer camp with lots of killer wine, and that's the same spirit of hospitality we're aiming for with Food & Wine-produced events throughout the year.

Maybe I'll see some of you April 5 at the next Best New Chef dinner at 2023 BNC Amanda Shulman's Her Place Supper Club in Philadelphia during The Chef Conference. Or maybe at the top of Aspen Mountain on June 21 during the 42nd Food & Wine Classic in Aspen where Silverton and 2019 BNC Kwame Onwuachi are headlining a Best New Chef Eras Dinner celebrating chefs from different generations, including 2001 BNC Wylie Dufresne and 2015 BNC Katie Button. The dinner is one of dozens of programs and parties we're announcing soon as a part of the three-day festival weekend. You can still purchase F&W Classic tickets and then build your schedule by signing up for some of the 80 cooking demonstrations, wine seminars, panel discussions, and spirits tastings, in addition to Grand Tastings where attendees can sample incredible bites and sips from 150 chefs, winemakers, and distillers.

Producing a F&W Classic is like putting together a special issue of the magazine, only IRL. Our aim is to create dozens of surprise and delight moments over the course of a three-day event. Here are some of the programs planned for Aspen that I’m really excited about:

Like many of you, I grew up watching Martin Yan on TV, and he is finally making his Classic debut, bringing his positive energy to the Aspen stage with a demo about The Joy of Noodles.

Phil Rosenthal just signed on to join Silverton to cook and talk about their upcoming L.A. diner project Max + Helen's. We're also working on a screening of his upcoming Season 8 of his Netflix streamer Somebody Feed Phil.

My colleague Kat Kinsman is leading a conversation series and live taping of our Tinfoil Swans podcast (which returns for Season 3 on April 8) with guests like Kristen Kish of Top Chef, Padma Lakshmi of Taste the Nation, and Ayesha Curry.

Who has the better palate, chefs or sommeliers? We're hosting a label-free tasting competition with 2022 BNC Justin Pichetrungsi of Anajak Thai and 2013 BNC Chris Shepherd facing off against two sommeliers to find out. Pichetrungsi, a natural born teacher, is also leading a cooking demo called No Rules, No Limits: Thai Cooking My Way.

My colleague Lucy Simon and I are curating a pop-up wine bar at the Grand Tasting Pavillion where we'll feature snacks from some of our favorite chefs and hard-to-get wines, along with dishes from the magazine.

Want to learn how to be a better home cook? Start with Superpowered Pantry: Secret Ingredients for Dynamo Dinners, a demo taught by Tiffany Derry; Mex-Italian: Two Incredible World Cuisines Collide with Claudette Zepeda; or The Magic of Cooking with Turmeric with Maneet Chauhan. These are just three of the 20 cooking demos throughout the weekend.

With more than 50 different wine, cocktail, and beverage seminars, the beverage programming will feature a mix of old world and new world wines, beers, cocktails, sake, tequilas, and investing and collecting advice. June Rodil will be hosting The Future of Wine is Female and Monica Samuels will be hosting Sake vs. Wine: The Ultimate Showdown.

Gregory Gourdet is throwing a Caribbean Cookout at the top of Aspen Mountain celebrating the foodways and cocktails of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora.

For our fellow F&W Pros with trade passes to the Classic, the American Express Trade Program is coming back with more details to be announced soon.

I hope to see you out there in the world this year at our events, and if you want any more advice about how to make the most out of your F&W Classic experience, feel free to shoot me an email with questions.

Warmly,
Hunter