Festival News

Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival pivots to new personal chef dinners for 2021

A creation from Tokyo Cafe.

Photo courtesy of Tokyo Cafe

The Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival (FWFWF) is pivoting for the second year in a row, this time introducing a divine new format with chef-prepared dinners.

Called Forty at the 'Fork, it'll consist of 20 special pop-up dinners featuring 40 local chefs that will take place weekly between February 28 and April 13, within The Shops at Clearfork.

The 2021 Festival was originally scheduled to take place from April 8-11, and would have marked a return to normalcy, following the cancellation of the 2020 version due to COVID-19.

But according to a release, the Fort Worth Food + Wine Foundation, the nonprofit that organizes the event, decided to cancel 2021 as well, due to "continued uncertainties surrounding COVID-19 and the state of the restaurant industry."

The dinner series represents a new focus on small-scale events that spotlight local culinary talent while raising funds to support their ongoing mission, which includes the Restaurant Employee Relief Fund, which has provided more than $110,000 to local service staff, to date.

"The purpose of the Fort Worth Food + Wine Foundation is to celebrate local culinary talent today while also helping protect it for tomorrow," says Julie Eastman, the group's executive director. "Forty at the ’Fork is an opportunity to showcase 40 amazingly talented chefs, plus many local business owners, who’ve been working tirelessly despite current industry challenges, while also continuing to grow our culinary scholarship and classroom grant offerings."

The dinners will take place in the former Twigs American Bistro space, whose massive 8,896-square-foot space will allow them to meet the requirement to stay under 20 percent seating capacity and support ample social distancing between tables.

Two dozen of some of the best chefs around have already confirmed they'll participate, including:
• Jon Bonnell, Bonnell's Restaurant Group
• Cindy Crowder, Tributary Café
• Graham Dodd, Elm & Good
• Steve Estes, Brewed
• Rena Frost, Mac’s on Main
• James Gaines, Reata Restaurant
• Paco Islas, Paco’s Mexican Cuisine
• Christian Lehrmann, Tinie’s Mexican Cuisine
• Tim Love, Lonesome Dove Western Bistro
• Chris Magallanes, Panther City BBQ
• Kevin Martinez, Tokyo Café
• Molly McCook, Ellerbe Fine Foods
• Ben Merritt, Fixture - Kitchen and Social Lounge and Ben’s Triple B
• Marcus Paslay, Scratch Hospitality
• Tuan Pham, Four Sisters - A Taste of Vietnam
• Stefon Rishel, Wishbone & Flynt
• Juan Rodriguez, Magdelena's
• Trevor Sales, Brix Barbecue
• Blaine Staniford, Grace
• Michael Thomson, Michaels Cuisine
• Donatella Trotti, Nonna Tata
• Laurie Williamson, Black Cur Steak

There will also be collaborations with FunkyTown Donuts, Grounds & Gold Coffee, Hao & Dixya, Icon Bread, JOY Macarons, MELT Ice Creams, Rahr Brewing, Martin House Brewing Company, Pearl Snap Kolaches, The Table, Sweet Lucy’s Pies, Gold Ribbon Confections, TX Whiskey, Stir Crazy Baked Goods, and more.

The Foundation also plans to host a small-scale event in October, as it did in 2020, and fingers crossed that the old weekend-long festival can happen in 2022.

Tickets for all 20 Forty at the ’Fork dinners are on sale at FWFWF.com for $70 per person, with each event limited to 50 guests.

Tickets can be purchased for a specific date, and they'll reveal the menus so that people can buy wine. But the identities of the chef won't be revealed until that night. Mystery!

festivals

Chef News

Fort Worth's Will Rogers Memorial Center welcomes bright new chef

FortWorthtx.gov

Will Rogers Memorial Center

There's a new chef in town: Waylon Cornelius, named executive chef of catering and concessions for Craft Culinary Concepts, the food and beverage provider at Will Rogers Memorial Center.

Will Rogers Memorial Center is the 120-acre entertainment complex anchoring Fort Worth’s Cultural District, owned and operated by the City of Fort Worth. Cornelius will oversee menus for trade shows and other events at the center which bring in more than 2 million visitors a year.

Craft Culinary Concepts is headquartered in Glendale, Arizona, and manages food and beverage programs for entertainment, sports and cultural facilities.

Chef Waylon Corneliusfortworthtx.gov

According to a release, Cornelius joined the team this summer and is already shifting the expectations of guests from a typical “BBQ and beans” menu to a bill of fare satisfying every kind of palate.

“We always have fajitas ready to go, but we also make a beautiful Beef Wellington or baked salmon with a pink salt crust,” Cornelius says in a statement.

For consumer trade shows, Craft and its partners Caribou and Taco Heads offer more choices for the thousands of guests who attend events at WRMC annually.

“Some of our equestrian guests are away from home and here for several days, and they need more than popcorn and hot dogs,” Cornelius says. “Our concessions offer biscuits and gravy, burritos made in-house, strawberry salad, fruit and yogurt cups.”

A native of Mansfield, Cornelius grew up helping in a farm-to-table kitchen. He was raised on a farm with his mother, grandmother, and grandfather -- a Vietnam veteran who enjoyed vegetable gardens and raising hogs and chickens. He studied computer science after high school and holds an associate's degree in Cultural Resource Management and Policy Analysis from Tarrant County College.

He's a 2003 graduate of AIMS Academy of Culinary Arts in Dallas where he was mentored by a number of great chefs. While training as assistant executive sous chef at the AAA four-diamond Grand Hyatt DFW, he worked with Executive Chef Sutti Sripolpa, chef Eric Dreyer (who went on to be Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef), and Chef Jean-Claude Plihon, under whom he honed his French cooking skills.

As executive sous chef at the opening of Perry’s Steakhouse and Grille in Southlake, Cornelius gained expertise with volume. While at HG Sply Co., he learned about gluten-free items and other food allergies.

HG Sply is also where he crossed paths with Chef James R. Schell III, Craft’s general manager at WRMC, who recruited Cornelius to the complex.

"James said he needed someone who can hit moving targets, push the culinary team to be more avant-garde and use locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, so here I am," Cornelius says. "Culinary is a small world."

“I want people to say, ‘When we were in Fort Worth, you won’t believe what we got at Will Rogers!’” Schell says. “Even the celebrities who perform [in the auditorium] are surprised. When Chicago played here recently and we served dinner backstage, they said they felt treated like the Rolling Stones.”

chefs