Atlanta Food & Wine Festival 2014

This recap is a few days late, but I had to recover from all my overindulgences at the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival!

I have wanted to go to this festival in past years, but my student budget couldn’t really fit it in. This year one of Jason’s co-workers mentioned to him that they get free tickets by volunteering and WOAH–I immediately knew I had to do that. Every volunteer shift you do gets you a free ticket (normally $100) and a ticket half price! Amazing! I volunteered on Saturday morning, which was fun and definitely worth it! Then Jason and I used our tickets to visit the tasting tents on Sunday, which happened to be his 26th birthday! We had a GREAT time!

The tasting tent portion of the festival had over 100 exhibitors organized into “tasting trails” that included: Barbecue, Bourbon, Breakfast, Breads & Sweets, Chicken, Craft Beer, Imports & Inspirations, Pork, Seafood, Snacks & Cheeses, Southern Grown and Southern Wines & Spirits. Oh my. Yes, it’s as awesome as it sounds.

Once arriving at the festival and seeing the sheer amount of food and drinks that you get along with your ticket, I realized that even the full price of the tickets is a great deal! We enjoyed our fill of beer, snacks, cocktails, desserts…oh my goodness. All the food was prepared on tasting plates for visitors to grab, and grab I did.

I was pretty much in foodie heaven being surrounded by so much beautiful food and so many talented chefs.

If you’re wondering about what the festival is like as a vegetarian, I had no problem filling myself to the brim. I did have to be extra careful about vegetable dishes and salads because a lot of them did have meat in them. I found the most veg options in the Snacks and Cheeses tent, Southern Grown tent, and Breads and Sweets tent! Some of my favorite tasting memorites were this mango lassi from Bhojanic:

This brie from La Bonne Vie (I went back for at least 3 tastes, it was SO good):

And this peach cobbler from Lane Orchards!:

I think the thing I loved MOST about the festival (besides the ample variety of alcoholic beverages 🙂 ) was getting to taste food from a lot of Atlanta hot spots that have been on my list to try. Places like Woodfire Grill:

and Revolution Doughnuts (that fresh peach doughnut slider was the stuff of dreams):

So. Much. Food. And. Drinks.

As if all the tasting wasn’t enough, towards the end of the festival exhibitors started GIVING AWAY full sizes of their awesome food! I’m talking fresh fruit, full bars of chocolate, bags of candy…it got serious. We got a huge and delicious loaf of sourdough to take home from La Farm Bakery!

The festival far exceeded my expectations and is one of the most fun food events I’ve ever been to. I can’t see myself missing a year from here on out! I would highly recommend volunteering if you can’t make the cost of a ticket, it’s well worth it and you get to feel like you’re helping the event run smoothly.

Until next year!

-Lauren