New Orleans Wine & Food Experience

My daughter and I attended the NOWFE brunch and it was fantastic. There was live music, knife demo, booze, and tasty bites. The venue, NOCHI, was perfect as there was plenty of space inside plus a rooftop view of city. Parking was easy, and free since it was a Sunday.Once inside, we checked in and recieved snazzy bracelets. Then they guided us to the dining room and bar upstairs. We grabbed drinks at the bar, Bloody Mary for me and Stella for my daughter. Then we found seats at one of the large tables. We sat with a couple that had been enjoying the brunch already.We started off with the beef and grits dish which ended up being our favorite dish of the day. This is saying a lot as I had not found worthy grits until this day. All the dishes were creative and had incorporated tabasco into their recipe. The sorbet from Sucré really had a kick to it! We tried all the bites offered and enjoyed ourselves. All in all, it was a casual but classy, fun event!

I am so glad I went to the NOWFE. So many types of wine and fabulous foods and desserts to try. There were also waters and coffee provided. I took one for the team and tried almost every food they had to sample...lol...My favorite throughout the whole event was the Cucumber Basil Smash, made from Hendricks Gin. Didn't knew I was a Gin kind of gal! I've enclosed the recipe for it under my photos. My friend and I had such a great time that we definitely will attend it next year again. I highly recommend it, the whole experience was wonderful. I left totally in a food coma.

The NOWFE starts with the Wine Dinners at selected restaurants in New Orleans. WE attended the dinner at Bistreaux Hotel Maison Dupuy and the Selby Winery.First of all, our host team from the Hotel Dupuy were amazing and attentive to our needs thru the 2 hours plus dinner. They had a jazz band playing throughout the dinner, great music.Our host Susie Selby, owner of the winery was a great along with our Executive Chef Matt Regan from the Bistreaux. five course dinner with each course paired with a specific wine. Each course the Chef and Susie explained the food and the wine; As advertised The experience was worth it and truly was one of a kind.

ZERO chance that we would ever go back for this... paid $179 for the "VIP" Royal Street Stroll experience and for that we got a few cheese cubes, 1 oz wine pours, and a registration/check-in that was a complete cluster. The four of us could have had a pretty great dinner for the $720 we spent, and not had to have gone through the check-in BS we were put through...Live & learn...

The New Orleans Wine & Food Experience benefits local Louisiana non-profit organizations. The events showcase local food and chefs along with national and international wines. This is a five day event which has been nationally recognized as one of the most prestigious festivals of its kind. The events feature over 175 wineries, 1000 wines and include dozens of international wine and food experts. The events include wine and food seminars, wine dinners at some of the city's most celebrated restaurants, one-of-a-kind wine tasting events, and two Grand Tastings. I've only attended the Grand Tastings and the Royal Street Stroll so far. The Grand Tastings in my experience were very crowded and had very long lines that greatly diminished my enjoyment so I'm not sure I would be motivated to return to that portion of the celebration. The Royal Street Stroll is a wine tasting and gallery tour that proceeds down Royal Street in the French Quarter and I've done this event for many years and had a great time. Overall this is a fantastic celebration of food and wine and a good experience that will give you a uniquely New Orleans and Louisiana experience while including a global appreciation of food and drink.

Used to love this event. So I scheduled around their dates to go again in 2020. Sadly due to COVID-19 they had to cancel. Excellent decision on their part. What is not excellent is the way they are handling refunds. There are none. They simply said they will honor tickets for some future event that has yet to be scheduled? Huh? Who knows when that event will be held? Who knows if I'll be able to make it. Refunds should be provided. Sadly the organizers simply don't care to make things right and are taking our money. Can't give anything more than 1* for such behavior. Sad that. Aimee Brown (executive director), Ewell Smith (board member) and others involved in this decision should be ashamed.

The 2017 event was held at Mardi Gras World. This is a warehouse and hard to keep cool. It was hot and drinking wine made it feel hotter. I like red wine but had to drink white and rose' just to cool off. The food table lines were long. There was not enough variety. I have been to NOWFE in the past at the Convention Center and this was a bigger place and it had A.C..Many people came from out of state and spent money on travel and hotel. The general admission ticket of $119 was too much to spend to have to eat and drink in a hot humid warehouse with the doors kept open!Lots of people told me they were disappointed and would not be back.

Review of 2017 Grand Tasting. I feel honored to be the first one leaving a scathing review of this year's event, based on my conversations with other guests, I've no doubt there will be many similar reviews to follow.This was my 4th time having gone to this event. It has previously been held in the Convention Center. And on both Friday and Saturday evenings.2017 saw the event move to Mardi Gras world.The queue to get in was placed in one of the float warehouses. Very pretty, yes, but also a solid 10 degrees hotter in there than it was the 80 degrees outside. This was where I began to be uncomfortable and start sweating, to not stop until I get home.Surely the actual event will be inside with air con, right? Well half of it was in a tent outside. I don't know how the chefs cooking in that tent didn't fall out, it trapped all that stale, hot air. A completely miserable place to be. The outside part had about 9 food stations, but really no wine, wine was insideAt least the horrible tent outside made the first steps inside feel like a reprieve. You soon realized that the air conditioning inside doesn't really work. On the first floor it must have been 75, and it felt hotter on the second floor than it did outside.That is if you could figure out how to get upstairs. It took me an hour to find the unmarked exit door that leads to a narrow staircase up stairs.At least the second floor wasn't as crowded as the first. The first floor was packed shoulder to shoulder.The previous events were in a larger space with two nights to choose from, so 2017 was about 4 times as crowded than previous events.At least the long lines to get to sample the food and drinks filled your time will. Because it seems like there was half an much to choose from of each. This year had way less variety the previous years. It also seemed like many of my favorite restaurants from the city weren't there. Instead there was a restaurant from California smearing red beans on toast and topping it with over salted pickled trinity. Don't try to do reginal food if you don't have a clue what you are doing!Though the local group serving proper red beans and rice (yes paid $175 to eat red beans and sweat) they had crunchy, uncooked rice.I feel like i am rambling now. In summary,. Location sucked, food selection sucked, too crowded, not worth the $175 admission.I'll have to tomorrow long and hard if I will go back next year. Or maybe this was NOFWE's last gasp before dieing a sad, sweaty death?

This was the most incredible event I ever attended in New Orleans. The food was top notch got a chance to speak to a number of the chefs in attendance. And of course the wine selection was 1st class. All of the wine vendors were very knowledgeable and shared so many details on there offerings. It was a pleasure to also sample interesting coffees and those tasty deserts. I plan to attend next year. A+++++++

This is in my Top 5 events all year long. Wednesdays are the wine dinners where one winery is featured at every restaurant. I've never had less than a spectacular experience at these dinners. Thursday is the best night to me. It's the Royal St Stroll. Royal St closes down to the public and with a wristband you go in all the galleries where there's a different winery and restaurant in each location. MS Rau is the highlight every year. WOW. Enjoying their amazing collection with fabulous wine is the experience of a lifetime. The grand tastings Fri and Sat are nice but get there early before the crazy crowds descend upon the place. On top of it being fabulous, this benefits many local organizations so it's win win!