Top chefs heat up Food, Wine and Rum Festival in Barbados

On a luminous November morning at Sandy Lane — the uber-exclusive luxury resort on the Caribbean island of Barbados — unsuspecting visitors might imagine they’d stumbled onto a set at the Food Network.

From the helm of a balmy outdoor kitchen, chef and TV personality Ming Tsai demonstrated his technique for cooking local lobster to a rapt crowd, avidly taking notes. In a nearby air-conditioned room, sommelier and author Anthony Giglio schooled his audience on holiday wine selections, giving each glass a swirl and a sniff. In the resort’s sunny atrium, meanwhile, a well-heeled crowd of locals and visitors chatted about recipes, chefs and the delectable spread at the previous night’s gala.

It was, in other words, just another day at Barbados’s second annual Food, Wine and Rum Festival.

“The Caribbean is like Italy and France: loaded with culture and culinary heritage,” said chef and author Marcus Samuelsson, who participated in the festival for the second year in a row. “If you just come for sand and the sea you’re missing out. So a festival like this allows us all a chance to experience more than that.”
A long weekend chock-a-block with wine and rum tastings, cooking demonstrations and nightly music-and-food-filled shindigs, the Food Wine and Rum Festival has “indulgence” written all over it. Its recipe — rock-star chefs, stunning Caribbean locales, live local music and ample servings of gourmet food, wine and rum — is a winning one, evidenced by the fact that this year’s crowd doubled last year’s.

“Last year, the festival was populated mostly by locals and visitors who happened to be in Barbados for the weekend. But this year I’m meeting people from the States and the Caribbean who are making it an annual pilgrimage to be here,” said Christina Grdovic, vice president and publisher of Food and Wine magazine, put out by American Express Publishing, who coordinates the event.

The company, Grdovic explained, was approached by the Barbados Tourism Authority three years ago about showcasing Barbados — home to dozens of renowned restaurants and the only Caribbean island with its own Zagat’s guide — as the culinary capital of the Caribbean.