From a culinary night's out viewpoint it was a success.
Many restaurants, many wine merchants, many clubs, much free food in delicious combinations. There was even a Top Chef themed event between two Palm Beach County chefs and one Miami chef, with MC WPTV Anchorman Jay Cashmere.
From a locavore perspective it was not a complete success.
Even there were a lot of restaurants sourcing fruits and vegetables locally; they were the same ones as last year. And their source companies were the same as last year (Swank Specialty Produce and Farmhouse Tomatoes) without change. With the few exceptions of Echo and Top of the Point who got their produce from the Breakers Resort internal greenmarket.
The same restaurants that were not sourcing local last year continued this year giving the same excuses that it was either too expensive or they were too small to interest a farm.
And even though there were many wine vendors including a new brand of organic wine called CalNatural in Tetra Pak packaging. There was still a sorry lack of Florida wine representation...actually there was none. I talked to several restaurants about this problem and they said they were not aware Florida had wineries.
Maybe next year the Palm Beach Food and Wine Festival can be both a culinary success and a locavore success...by including Florida Wines.
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