The Super Bowl of food in Nashville is now over and I’m left wondering why I ate so much and also wanting to eat more at the same time. You've gotta love Music City Food + Wine Festival!
For the past few years, I’ve attended just the main part of Saturday and the first year I only went to the Gospel Brunch. This was my first time attending Harvest Night and it was quite a memorable experience. Honestly, that first year for brunch might have been the best time I’ve ever had at the festival. The format has changed since then though.
Friday evening had a nice crowd and it wasn’t too busy. The food offerings were a bit underwhelming overall, but there were some standout bites from Makeready, Parson's Chicken & Fish, HoneyFire BBQ and 5th & Taylor. The huge treehouse from Angry Orchard was cool, and offered some great two story views to help you plan your attack.
Saturday cranked it up a couple notches. There were more people than on Friday, but fewer than the weekend crowd in previous years. The weather was hotter, and the food overall was much better. My favorites bites were from Etch, Henley, Hathorne, and Whitebird.
The bathroom is a great place to get away and get a nice A/C break. The times I used the bathroom almost everyone was using the port-a-potties as opposed to the luxury bathrooms. Why would you punish yourself like that with a $100+ price point? Get your money’s worth people!
As part of my annual tradition I attended a book signing. This year I chose The Scarpetta Cookbook by the wonderful Scott Conant. He even mentioned that he liked my food pun shirt!
This year was my first time at Harvest Night and it brought out all the weekends big names like Rick Bayless, Carla Hall, and Aaron Sanchez. For the first 45 minutes or so the lines were relatively short and I ate through mostly all of the booths. After that, you had to really want to try the food with those long lines.
Harvest night was a truly spectacular setting. It was a great way to finish off an amazing weekend of food. The stand out bites of the night for me were from Margot McCormack, Deb Paquette, Matthew Hyland, and Sarah Grueneberg.
Music City Wine + Food felt more corporate this year and seemed to have lost a bit of the local Nashville flavor. Some great local vendors were missing and of course, it wasn’t the same without Pat Martin’s BBQ. As the evolution of the festival goes, it seems to continue trending towards more booths with alcohol and fewer vendors serving up food options. Regardless, you can’t miss an opportunity to attend any event where you can find all these amazing Chefs and restaurants all in one place. See you there next year!
