Eating extravaganza

Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival fires up return of 4-day foodie fete for 2022

Dressing up like the food is not required.

Photo by Nancy Farrar

Fort Worth’s tastiest feeding frenzy of spring is back for its seventh edition. The 2022 Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival will take place over four days and three nights March 31 through April 3, featuring the best of the city's culinary talent — along with a few special guests.

“We are so proud to bring a lineup of exceptional chef-driven concepts and beverage partners back to the table to delight nearly 7,000 foodies with their innovative and delicious offerings,” says festival director Julie Eastman.

Hungry festival-goers aren't sleeping on their chance to dig in; 10 days out, all Weekender passes (which allow access to the entire festival) and early entrance to all events are sold out. General admission still available.

Featuring six, sip-and-stroll tasting events, the festival mostly takes place at the Heart of the Ranch at Clearfork, an open-air space shaded by trees located at Edwards Ranch along the Trinity River. Tickets range from the $50 Tacos + Tequila party on Thursday, March 31 to the $125 Main Event, which will offer substantial noshes from more than two dozen Fort Worth-area chefs and restaurateur along with 100-plus wines, beers, and spirits.

From Houston to Ho Nai
New this year is a special collaborative dinner featuring Houston’s James Beard Award-Winning chef Chris Shepherd (fresh off appearing as a guest judge on Top Chef), and Fort Worth chef Tuan Pham of Fort Worth's Four Sisters – A Taste of Vietnam. The seated, four-course dinner, called "From Houston to Ho Nai," is meant to be an evening of Asian-influenced Texas cooking; it will take place at Brik Venue on Thursday, March 31. The $195 per-person price includes drink pairings and an autographed copy of Shepherd’s cookbook Cook Like a Local: Flavors That Can Change How You Cook and See the World.

The menu will include Cha Lua with Green Papaya Salad paired with Banh Cuon with Pork and Mushrooms; Cajun-Viet Crawfish Boil, Crawfish & Noodles-Style paired with Crab Fried Rice With Fried Egg; and much more. For the complete menu and more information, visit the event site.

One of Houston's most famous chefs, Shepherd earned his Beard Award at Underbelly, a restaurant that blended locally-sourced ingredients with culinary techniques inspired by the city's diverse immigrant community. Now the owner of four Bayou City restaurants, Shepherd also co-founded the Southern Smoke Foundation, a non-profit that's provided millions of dollars in emergency relief to hospitality workers in crisis situations.

Here's the rest of the festival lineup with all details.

Tacos + Tequila
Thursday, March 31
7-10 pm
Tickets: $75
Heart of the Ranch at Clearfork
Tacos and margaritas provide for a pairing that never disappoints. There’ll be 18 chefs and 12 tequila vendors sharing their tastiest creations, from classics to inventive dishes and drinks. Participating restaurants include Del Norte Tacos, Enchiladas Ole, Funkytown Donuts, Fantasma Kitchens (from chef Lanny Lancarte), Magdalena's, Los Vaqueros, Paloma Suerte, Toro Toro, and many more (list is here).

The Main Event
Friday, April 1
6:30-9 pm
Tickets: $125
Heart of the Ranch at Clearfork
Arrive hungry for the festival’s most grand affair. There’ll be more than 100 wines, craft beers, and spirits to choose from along with dishes from 27 chefs, restaurateurs, and artisan producers. Don’t miss the pop-up experience with barbecue expert Matt Pittman of Meat Church BBQ, who’ll invite top culinary talent to fire up the grill, including Lisa and Tom Perini of the James Beard Award-winning Perini Ranch Steakhouse in Buffalo Gap. Other participating restaurants include 97 West, Bonnell's, Carpenter's Cafe, Ellerbe Fine Foods, The Fitzgerald, La Onda, Lonesome Dove, and many more (full list is here).

Nite Bites
Friday, April 1
9-11 pm
Tickets: $60
Whiskey Ranch
This sweet soiree will take festival-goers out to the 112-acre home of TX Whiskey for an after-hours dance party with DJ music. There’ll be 16 chefs serving both desserts and savory bites and 14 mixologists shaking up TX Whiskey cocktails. Participating restaurants include Branch & Bird, Dusty Biscuit Beignets, Stir Crazy Baked Goods, The Bearded Lady, and many more (full list is here).

Culinary Corral
Saturday, April 2
11 am-2 pm
Tickets: $85
Heart of the Ranch at Clearfork
Brunch the day away with a three-hour celebration of the best of the fest with 25 Chefs and 35 beverage vendors. The Culinary Corral features a tasting tent, beer garden, and live music. Guests can wander, taste, and sip to their hearts’ delight, as one ticket covers all the food and beverages you can (responsibly) consume. Participating restaurants include Boopa's Bagel Deli, Hurtado Barbecue, Nonna Tata, Rise No. 3, Waters, Wicked Butcher, and many more (full list is here).

Burgers, Blues + Brews
Saturday, April 2
6 pm-9 pm
Tickets: $80
Heart of the Ranch at Clearfork
Burgers are basically a food group in Cowtown, and this event showcases some of the best in town. More than a dozen chefs will grill their tastiest burgers, to be judged both by celeb judges and festival patrons. Wash them down with craft beer from several area breweries. There’ll be live blues music, too. Participating restaurants include Fred's Texas Cafe, JD's Hamburgers, Melt Ice Creams, Pearl Snap Kolaches, and many more (full list is here).

Ring of Fire: A Next-Level Cookout
Sunday, April 3
2-4 pm
Tickets: $90
Heart of the Ranch at Clearfork
Close out the festival at this live-fire event, where 22 pitmasters and chefs will host Fort Worth’s biggest cookout. There’ll no doubt be plenty of barbecue, but also exotic dishes, too. Wine, beer, and spirits will be paired with live music. Participating restaurants include Dayne's Craft Barbecue, Heim BBQ, Smokestack 1948, The Original Black's Barbecue, and many more (full list is here).

Proceeds from the festival benefit the Fort Worth Food + Wine Foundation, which provides grants and scholarships to aspiring culinary students. The Foundation also financially assisted several struggling Fort Worth restaurants during the 2020 shutdown.

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Eric Sandler contributed to this story.

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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.”

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