Sunday, January 17, 2010

Over the years, Key West has developed dozens of festivals and events to celebrate aspects of its history and show off its best assets, be it a week dedicated to powerboat races, Bahamian heritage or all things pirates or Ernest Hemingway.

Later this month, the first Key West Food and Wine Festival will show off the island's eclectic cuisine through a four-day assemblage of tastings, fixed-price dinners, seminars and other events at various venues.

"This isn't about any singular restaurant, it's about the entire food community," said Richard Tallmadge, one of the event's three organizers, who hope to make it an annual event.

Tallmadge, who owns of The Restaurant Store on Eaton Street and has chaired Taste of Key West for the last two years, thought the idea was long overdue and quite fitting for an eight-square-mile island that's home to hundreds of eateries.

"It's been an idea that needed to happen years ago, but no one had the gumption to do it," he said.

Tallmadge and his co-organizers set out to make the event a reality about six months ago. Mindy McKenzie is a former chair of Taste of Key West, who heads development for Wesley House Family Services, and Mark Certonio is a former manager of Cafe Marquesa and was heavily involved in a smaller-scale food festival the now-defunct restaurant and bar association organized several years ago.

Their vision is to showcase Key West at the best time of year and to introduce people to the multifarious cuisine available here. Only local vendors are involved.

"Where do you want to go for hogfish or a yellowtail snapper dinner? Do you want to go to New York? No, you want to go to Key West," Tallmadge said.

The organizers took inspiration from other food festivals around the country and especially the well-attended annual event in Miami, but want to keep things true to Key West and its identity -- smaller and quirkier, but done just as well.

"We don't want this to be South Beach," McKenzie said. "We love this community and we want people to come here and see why we love it."

The festival has been heavily marketed throughout the state and South Florida, but people as far as California, Washington, Iowa, Wyoming, Colorado and Canada already have bought tickets to the events.

The festival's overseers hope to draw 300 to 400 people to each event, McKenzie said.

"We don't want 3 million people coming; we want it managed," Certonio said.

The festival kicks off Jan. 28 with a party at the Southernmost Beach Cafe at Duval and South streets.

"I was very excited about the idea of bringing a food and wine festival to Key West and thrilled to be part of this event," said Carrie Babich, sales and marketing director for the Southernmost Hotel Collection. "This event will expose the culinary art and talent we have on this island to the world. I look forward to seeing this event grow and making this another Key West special event in the years to come."

Other events include a grand tasting featuring dozens of wines and samplings of local seafood dishes taking place Jan. 29 at the plaza near the Westin Key West Resort & Marina.

The highlight of the weekend takes place Jan. 30 with Duval Uncorked, a 1/2-mile-long food sampling and wine tasting event on Duval Street that includes restaurants, bars, boutiques and galleries. Attendees must buy tickets to each event.

The festival also features five seminars on topics including food writing and cake decorating.

More than 40 local restaurants are either involved in the events or hosting events at their own properties, such as a coconut bowling and recipe contest at Blue Heaven Restaurant, a Havana night cigar dinner at El Meson de Pepe, wine and tapas at Tavern N Town, or a champagne brunch at Azur Restaurant, among many others.

"We wanted other businesses to get involved if they wanted to," McKenzie said, explaining that every participating restaurant was encouraged to develop their own event.

Tallmadge acknowledged the difficulty at times to get people to commit to the idea in its inaugural year.

"One of the challenges of a first-time event is everybody wants to take a wait-and-see attitude," Tallmadge said.

Some establishments recognized the potential right off the bat.

"When I first heard about the Food and Wine festival I thought it was a great idea," said Graff Kelly, who heads marketing, events and promotions for Conch Republic Seafood Co. "I'm very familiar with the large food and wine fest in South Beach, and I hope that this event will get larger and larger and turn into something similar in future years, with big name sponsorship and celebrity chef involvement."

The Monroe County Tourist Development Council recognized the event's perceived ability to draw in visitors and appropriated $38,000 in marketing funds to the group during its annual funding allocations in August to promote the festival.

"We believe many of our visitors who come to Key West come down to enjoy the food and the beverage of their like, and we believe that the food and wine festival will draw the type of clientele that we're looking for, and also give them a very pleasurable visit here in Key West," said Harold Wheeler, the tourism council's director.

McKenzie said she hopes the event will grow each year, and plans to add events as needed. The group has even considered adding an off-season event similar to Miami Spice, in which top restaurants throughout Miami offer special three-course, fixed-price menus for the months of August and September.

amswary@keysnews.com