Black truffle, wagyu tartare and celebrity chefs: Inside the opulent Pebble Beach Food & Wine

On Sunday, I stood in spring sunshine dressed in my garden party best while rising star chef Kwame Onwuachi shaved black truffle over a palm-sized chopped cheese sandwich made with dry-aged ribeye, smoked mozzarella and funky Taleggio cheese. One eye watched the delicate mushroom slices flutter over the cheesy interior of the hot sandwich, while the other was trained on a chef whom I’d only ever glimpsed inside Time magazine, on the series “Top Chef” and on an episode of “Chef’s Table,” Netflix’s ultimate foodie docuseries. 

The tasting pavilion at Pebble Beach Food & Wine was full of moments like this, where I was standing next to — and actually eating — food prepared by chefs whose restaurants I have dreamed of someday visiting. Plus a few dozen more extremely talented cooks from throughout the U.S. all trying to “wow” ticketholders and ultimately earn the People’s Choice award for best dish, as voted by festival goers by scanning a QR code. They were joined by more than 50 wineries and beverage makers offering everything from sparkling wine to espresso martinis floating gold-dusted coffee beans. 

Sunday’s tasting concourse was the final event of the four-day festival, which stretched from Thursday through Sunday at the luxurious Pebble Beach Resort just south of Monterey. The preceding days were packed with more than 40 seminars, lectures, lunches, dinners and other more intimate experiences ranging from around $250 to over $600 a seat. The tasting pavilions on Saturday and Sunday afternoons were the largest and most diverse events, with different lineups on each day.

The pavilion is massive, with two huge tents filled with more tiny plates of food than any one person could possibly eat in a day – trust me, I gave it the old college try – and enough wine to drown a sommelier. After two hours, my head was spinning, and not just from all the Napa cabernet sauvignon and Aperol spritzes (not together, although my mind was opened to some unusual combinations). 

I would go back again next year in a slow, artery-clogged heartbeat, but I’d do a few things differently next time to get the most out of it. Here’s five things to know before you go:

Vendors really do go all out

Not only did everyone understand the assignment – create a bite of food so packed with flavor and personality that it stops people in their tracks – but many creators really went out of their way to craft a memorable moment. One chef rolled, cut and folded fresh dough into a tiny carbonara-inspired ravioli, moments before eager guests popped the pecorino cheese-filled pasta into their mouths. At Tanqueray gin’s booth, bartenders mixed tiny martinis served with a side of truffle-flecked fries. Chopin Vodka offered coupes of espresso martinis behind a catchy red-and-white-tiled bar. 

The winning dish was prepared by chef Gustavo Rios from Solbar in Napa Valley, who scooped rich wagyu beef tartar with crispy rice and bright-orange trout roe into individual nori-wrapped hand rolls. Santa Cruz County chef Jessica Yarr made little macaron cookie ice cream sandwiches and managed to serve them at the perfect temperature, so they melted in your mouth with a burst of coconut and makrut lime or poppyseed with apple and celery. 

Don’t try to eat everything

Trust me, if I had paid $450 for a general admission ticket (I did not – I received a media pass), I would absolutely try to get my money’s worth by stuffing every single tartar, ceviche and mousse into my gullet. Allow me to liberate you from this impulse: It’s impossible. There are around 20 food vendors in each tent, each offering one- to three-bite portions, plus desserts and unexpected snacks to go with different cocktails. After trying nearly every stall in the first tent, I barely had enough room for some of the best-looking bites in the second one. In short: pace yourself. If you fly too close to the sun, you’ll just end up crashing into the ground (i.e., you’ll have a tummy ache).

There are more celebrities on Saturday

In addition to Onwuachi, I also got to see and taste creations from barbecue greats Rodney Scott and Chris Lilly. But unlike Saturday, there weren’t many other celebrities roaming around on the last day of the festival. One of the draws of this event are the stars, so I was a little disappointed that television personalities Giada De Laurentiis and Andrew Zimmern and famed restaurateurs Nancy Silverton and Alice Waters didn’t stick around. (De Laurentiis was on the list of vendors in early April, but her name had been removed by Saturday night.) 

The VIP ticket is worth it for the seating

After two hours of face-stuffing, I looked longingly at the Veuve Clicquot Sun Club on a raised stage above the festival. It wasn’t the early access, the tableside service or special snacks and drinks that a $595 VIP ticket offered – it was a spot on one of the comfy-looking couches so I could rest my full stomach. There were other seating areas reserved for people who had certain kinds of credit cards or other membership perks, but none for regular ticketholders. 

If you’re already living large at Pebble Beach, an additional $145 for a VIP ticket would allow you to enjoy the festival at a more relaxed pace – you get an extra hour before the festival – and give you the luxury of putting your feet up for a minute before heading back out for more caviar-topped fried chicken and Dungeness crab salad. 

A well-run festival can feel glamorous

Every guest received a real wine glass. It didn’t feel crowded, and I never had to wait more than a few seconds to grab a bite at each booth. The chefs were front and center to answer any questions. Entry was fast and seamless. There’s free parking right next to the venue so you don’t have to walk half a mile through a dusty lot in your party shoes. And there were cans of water and other nonalcoholic beverages up for grabs in cute coolers throughout the festival. Pebble Beach Food & Wine lived up to its self-proclaimed title as the country’s preeminent food and wine festival, and kept the bar high with a welcoming guest experience and a wild amount of great food. 

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