Chef groupies, gird your loins: This August, 70 internationally acclaimed chefs and food world luminaries are headed to Utah.
The Chef’s Table Festival, from the team behind Netflix’s longest-running documentary series of the same name, will launch 100 events in 30 participating restaurants across Park City over the course of four days (August 13 to 16). If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll be pleased to know the event promises immersive experiences, demos, and excursions alongside many chefs who appeared throughout the series. The event is in partnership with American Express and Resy, naturally.
Taking inspiration from the prestigious Ein Prosit food and wine festival in Udine, Italy, Chef’s Table invites festival guests to live “a day in the life” of the participating chefs and engage the local community, according to Justin Connor, Chef’s Table Projects president. “We loved that there were no big tents, no long lines for small bites and plastic utensils,” he says, comparing Ein Prosit’s focus on tasting menus, wine and food master classes, and intimate experiences to large-scale American food festivals.
The Chef’s Table Festival has already tapped Argentine chef and author Francis Mallmann; eighth-generation Italian butcher Dario Cecchini; Peruvian restaurateur Virgilio Martínez; Álvaro Clavijo of Bogotá’s El Chato, No. 1 in Latin America; James Beard semifinalist Fariyal Abdullahi of NYC’s Hav & Mar; Gilberto Cetina of Michelin-starred seafood destination Holbox; renowned Chilean pastry chef Camila Fiol; and Serigne Mbaye, the young chef bridging Senegalese cuisine and New Orleans creole comfort at the 2024 James Beard Best New Restaurant: Dakar. Other participating chefs include the legendary Nancy Silverton, Gaggan Anand, and Franco Pepe, who have all featured on the show and its spin-offs.
Guests can “choose their own adventures” by purchasing different tiered packages and making selections from curated experiences, which include foraging, fly-fishing, butchery, cooking classes and more. Chef’s Table Concierge will then tailor bespoke itineraries for the weekend based on each ticket package.
“We wanted to install chefs into restaurant spaces and let them create entirely new concepts for the weekend for people to enjoy,” Connor says. “I call it the ‘un-festival.’ We’re trying to build something that feels permanent and has all the trappings of permanence, but it really is ephemeral.”
Initially conceived in 2023 as a way to mark the show’s 10th anniversary last year, show creator David Gelb says the festival is a dream for Chef’s Table fans as well as an opportunity for chefs to “take some big swings” creatively, outside of the pressures of their own restaurants.
In an interview with Bon Appétit, Gelb reflects on the show’s impressive run, including how the first episode nearly fell apart.
“The biggest challenge of Chef’s Table is the audience only get to watch and hear the stories, but not taste the food,” Gelb says. “[The festival] is closer to the experience of what eating in these restaurants would be, all brought to one town. ”
While the festival promises intimate access and storytelling on-and-off the plate, cinematic views, and unique surprises, Gelb and Connor hope attendees also walk away with an appreciation and respect for the hard work that extends beyond the back of house.
“It’s a hard industry; it’s difficult to be in the profession right now, but I see it as a celebration of why we come together to eat, why we go to restaurants,” Gelb says. “That’s paramount and one of the most important things that makes us human. We come together around a hearth, we tell stories, and we eat.”
