Why Pebble Beach Food & Wine Festival Attracts Top Chefs And Sommeliers

“It’s the same vision as the beginning: to spread the ceviche message all over the world. So we come to such a beautiful place like the Pebble Beach Food & Wine Festival, with a big reputation all over the country, because there’s something very important to say,” Gastón Acurio tells Maxim of why he’s traveled all the way here to the Monterey Peninsula. We’re just minutes before the doors open to the globally celebrated Peruvian chef’s A Taste of La Mar dinner, Friday night of the sold-out four-day culinary bacchanalia, and the kitchen of Roy’s restaurant behind him moves with antic precision. 

“Peru was historically known as a country of commodities; when you talk about design, trends, fashion, you think about Italy, France, Japan. But we thought from the beginning that Peruvian cuisine could be something trendy, could be something fashionable, so we should aspire to be in the nicest hotels, the nicest environments, the nicest neighborhoods, so they could love Peruvian cuisine as they love French cuisine,” Acurio continues. “So this is one of the best places to be for that purpose.” 

The superstar chef brought his La Mar concept to the The Inn at Spanish Bay not simply to feed a lucky room full of culinary curious fans. It’s because the Pebble Beach Food & Wine Festival, widely considered one of the top such congregations in America, offers the opportunity to present his homeland’s food at the highest tier. And that fits, as Acurio has elevated above a simple chef to outright ambassador of the South American nation—the man widely considered to be the Godfather of Peruvian cuisine, the man who brought ceviche to the highest echelon of dining, with both his Astrid & Gastón restaurant (which topped Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants when the list debuted in 2013) and La Mar, his dedicated cebicheria found in such diverse locations as Doha, Madrid, San Francisco, Miami, Santiago de Chile and Dubai. This is the wattage of elite talent you can expect to find at PBF&W. 

“That’s the main idea: I want my Peruvian people to feel very proud because we are doing a Peruvian festival in Pebble Beach. So as important as it is to be here for us, maybe there’s a Peruvian guy reading this going, ‘Oh wow, that’s one of the most beautiful golf clubs in the world, and they’re serving our cows, our ceviche!’ That will give them pride, and hope, and that is one of the reasons we’re here.”

For there are food and wine festivals, and then there is Pebble Beach Food & Wine—an event firmly anchored in one of the planet’s most spectacular settings, one in which even the most jaded culinary traveler arrives buzzing. Staged each April across the iconic Pebble Beach Resorts just north of Big Sur, it is an event where glittering Michelin stars and bagpipe-soundtracked Pacific sunsets compete for your attention, and somehow both win.

The festival was born in 2008, the brainchild of two entrepreneurs from the Monterey community: Dave Bernahl and Rob Weakley. Neither came from the food industry in any traditional sense, but both possessed an instinct for experience-making and a sharp eye for opportunity. They smartly recognized Monterey County as one of the largest grape-growing regions in America, and yet claimed no nationally recognized gastronomic event to its name. Within a year they’d formed Coastal Luxury Management, and critically secured arguably the most coveted name in American gastronomy: Thomas Keller. To this day his French Laundry just three hours away in Yountville remains the most celebrated restaurant in the country. Landing Keller for the inaugural edition without a single sponsor confirmed what Bernahl and Weakley suspected: the location alone could attract the crème de la crème fraîche.

At Pebble Beach Food & Wine glittering Michelin stars and bagpipe-soundtracked Pacific sunsets compete for your attention, and somehow both win.

“It’s far from home, but he wanted to get out here to play golf,” Chef Ford Fry jokes dryly, pointing over to his son Anders when asked what brought him for the weekend. Owner of 20-plus restaurants in Atlanta, its clear the stellar landscape and U.S. Open-level golf were both big magnets for Fry, but obviously there’s more. The former chef of the Ojai Valley Inn transported his kitchen all the way from Georgia to introduce his former state to the Marcel Reserve Burger from his flagship Marcel restaurant. And good thing; we found his stand during Burgers & Barrels—arguably the most calorically hedonistic “Walk Around” event of the weekend assembling a lunatic’s gallery of all-you-can-eat burgers—by asking strangers which they preferred. Fry’s perfectly grilled dry aged beef—slathered in red wine veal jus, caramelized onion, and bone marrow aioli (the undeniable secret sauce) piled atop a pillowy brioche bun—made our eyes roll into the back of our head.

Overall some 300+ chefs and 150+ wineries and distilleries trotted out their finest work over the four days like a finely tuned gastronomic circus. It couldn’t fall further from some stale convention center vibe, because the fest’s activation at the Pebble Beach Golf Course, renowned for its truly jaw-slacking vistas, elevates the foodie bazaar to an event of global scale. 

It’s the same reason the annual Concours d’Elegance vintage car show, which we’ve attended a dozen times due to our side quest duties as an automotive journalist, rises above nearly all other Concours on the world calendar. To stand on that lawn—taking in the crooked cypress trees, the sweeping lime-colored golf greens, the stony cliffs and shores, the cold and wicked Pacific crashing its waves against them relentlessly—is to absorb a level of meditative peace on par with a yoga retreat.

Over nearly two decades the festival’s chef roster has blossomed into a true roll call of American and international culinary royalty; Thomas Keller’s early participation set a tone the event never abandoned. Curtis Stone transported the complete experience of his restaurant Maude—shutting it down in Los Angeles for the weekend—to serve a seasonal asparagus-driven tasting menu on the California coast. Nancy Silverton served as opening night host in 2024, presiding over a star-studded kickoff at the Inn at Spanish Bay. James Beard Award winners Stephanie Izard, Michael Symon, Jonathan Waxman, Geoffrey Zakarian, Kwame Onwuachi, Maneet Chauhan, and Antonia Lofaso have all cooked here. Onwuachi, who we’ve featured here before, created a festival memory at the Tasting Pavilion—shaving black truffle over a dry-aged ribeye chopped cheese sandwich with smoked mozzarella—that circulated for years. More recently the global scope of the festival’s talent has widened considerably, such as with the Japan-trained Shota Nakajima and previously mentioned Acurio joining lineups alongside established American names.

Over nearly two decades the festival’s chef roster has blossomed into a true roll call of American and international culinary royalty.

Of course as the fest’s name declares the wine program kept pace with the culinary ambition. Verticals of Château Margaux, Domaine Faiveley, Dom Pérignon, Krug, and Opus One have poured at dedicated seminars. Meanwhile, more to Maxim’s Spirit Of The Week’s liking, we stumbled across many of our favorite libations peppered across the twin tents—Volcan de mi Tierra Blanco Tahona, El Tesoro Single Barrel being poured through an ice luge, Glenfiddich and Glenmorangie single malts, and a brilliant Tanqueray Gin activation pairing dirty martinis with French fries. Simple yet briny perfection. 

But as we learned walking through the various tents and tastings, what distinguishes PBF&W from peer festivals is something harder to quantify than simply a chef roster or gaudy wine list. Consider our A Taste of La Mar dinner, where we shared a table with three-time World Series champ Chili Davis, 1991 Sports Illustrated Defensive Player of the Year Seth Joyner, their wives, and young Asian chefs Matt Ho (Bodega  SF) and Evan Kidera (Señor Sisig). Over copious Pisco/Bulleit Bourbon old fashioneds and plates of grilled octopus, scallop and uni sushi and rockfish ceviche there was no ego or pretense, just friendly aura, food and wine banter aplenty and perhaps even more Eagles vs Patriots vs Niners roasting. (Dumb side note: As a guy who grew up going to well over a dozen Coachellas, it’s hard to compute that a five-star foodie festival somehow now offers more authentic vibes on the same weekend than what was once America’s best indie music festival.)

Chef Kelsey Murphy mentions this unforced camaraderie, highlighting the casual mingling Pebble Beach encourages between chefs, vintners, sommeliers and guests: “Really I’m here because I get to hang out with all my friends,” she admits smiling. “I get to come to the best place in the country, see the best views, serve the best food, and like, just have a blast all weekend.” The ‘Queen of Game Day,’ as fans dubbed her, shot into stardom after winning Season 11 of MasterChef in 2021. She now runs both Clutch Kitchen inside the Indianapolis Colts’ Lucas Oil Stadium, and Bullseye Events Group, serving boozy all-you-can-eat-and-drink tailgates in the parking lots of 10 NFL teams. 

“I’m such a newbie into this ‘celebrity chef’ world, so for me getting an invite to Pebble Beach Food & Wine in itself feels like you’re ticking off those Big 3: Aspen, New York and here.” After a long day serving the people crispy Korean fried chicken sprinkled with Oscietra 5 Star caviar, Murphy shares what it was like receiving her first invitation to the prestigious festival. Because for young stars like her PBF&W can bequeath something even more important than breathtaking views and overflowing coffers of Volcan tequila: validation. “The fact that I’m now getting invited, to me as a chef it feels like a big honor,” she explains. “It feels like you’re getting initiated further into the club, and you actually belong here.” 

Follow Deputy Editor Nicolas Stecher’s travel, spirits and automotive adventures on Instagram at @nickstecher and @boozeoftheday.