T
his weekend marks the inaugural edition of a new gourmand food fest in Cincinnati. Sure, we already have The Taste of Cincinnati (the nation’s longest-running culinary arts festival), but the Cincinnati Food + Wine Classic will be much more upscale, more intimate and will finally show the world our inimitable culinary chops.
Cincinnati natives Donna Covrett and Courtney Tsitouris are the entrepreneurs behind the endeavor. Covrett, who was CityBeat’s dining editor before taking over the role for Cincinnati Magazine, partnered with food blogger and former marketing copywriter Tsitouris to form website and cookbook publisher City Stories last year as a means of “wrapping stories around food and food around stories,” Covrett says.
“We both wanted to do something that not only incorporated food but incorporated the community,” Tsitouris says about the vision for the company and festival.
Fashioning the fest from the bedrock of other food “classics” in cities like Atlanta, Portland, Ore., and Austin, Texas, they crafted Cincinnati’s event by adding our Porkopolis history and a mixture of French, Midwestern, Southern and Appalachian cuisines. The Classic’s main events will be held in Washington Park and feature more than 90 local, regional and national chefs and winemakers serving food and drinks and performing on-site demos, competitions, seminars and book signings.
Talent includes local star chefs like Jose Salazar, Dan Wright, Julie Francis, David Falk, Todd Kelly, Stephen Williams and more, plus regional stars like Tandy Wilson of City House in Nashville, Tenn., Summer Genetti of Lola Bistro in Cleveland and Ned Elliott of Foreign & Domestic in Austin, Texas, among others. Tickets for the Washington Park events start at $85 for the Culinary Showcase Pass and go up to $390 for the VIP Indulge Pass (priority seating, after-party tickets, VIP swag bag and entry to the VIP tent). More affordable after-parties like Sake + Sliders at Kaze in Over-the-Rhine (10:30 p.m.-1 a.m. Saturday) are $50 per person.
Covrett and Tsitouris teamed up in 2012, when Tsitouris, who at the time wrote a storytelling food blog called Epi-Ventures, contacted Covrett because she was a fan of hers and wanted to meet. The two met at Coffee Emporium, hit it off and continued to meet regularly.
“She invaded my dreams,” Covrett says, about having an epiphany of knowing Tsitouris was the partner she had been looking for.
A year ago, they both exited their jobs and started City Stories, which just released chef Daniel Wright’s cookbook Senate: Street & Savory. “I’m Larry and she’s Balki,” Tsitouris says of their dynamic.
“We both have a very dark sense of humor,” Covrett adds. “We both laugh so much. I’d never laughed as much with anyone in a business environment as I have with Courtney.”
To plan an impressive event like this, Covrett and Tsitouris first reached out to local chefs Wright and Jean-Robert de Cavel, then expanded the sphere to include foodie celebrities like Andrew Knowlton, restaurant and drinks editor at Bon Appétit, who had only ever been to Cincinnati once for a few hours; and SAVEUR magazine Senior Editor Keith Pandolfi, a Cincinnati native who hasn’t lived here in decades.
“We never had to work very hard to explain what it was we were trying to do,” Tsitouris says. “It seems like people just got it. As soon as you say Cincinnati Food + Wine Classic, it’s like, ‘Oh, I get that. I understand the model.’ ”
In the past few years, Cincinnati’s gastronomic scene has burbled over, with many talented chefs staying in town, moving into areas like Over-the-Rhine and aiding the city’s growth on a national scale.
“I think we have as talented chefs and food artisans as any city our size or bigger,” Covrett says.
“I think the great thing about our culinary scene is that you can have all this amazing food but at a fraction of the cost,” Tsitouris agrees.
Not only is our food affordable for culinary enthusiasts but also frugal for those chefs and restaurateurs looking to lay down roots. New Yorker de Cavel came here and loved it so much he decided to stay — going on 20 years now.
So far, people from as far as Canada have purchased tickets. “We want it to attract people and show them our community, and part of it is we really believe it’s going to continue to grow,” Tsitouris says.
Whereas The Taste becomes more unwieldy every year (more than 500,000 people this year), Covrett and Tsitouris want to keep the Classic fairly small (about 3,000 attendees) and cultivate the event outward into possible mini events throughout the year instead of trying to attract more and more people. Once this weekend is over, they’ll immediately start planning year two.
“It’s like a cluster of emotion doing something like this, but it’s overall exciting,” Tsitouris says. “I don’t think you get through something like this without being completely passionate about it.”
CINCINNATI FOOD + WINE CLASSIC takes place Friday and Saturday in Washington Park and venues around OTR. Buy tickets at cincinnatifoodandwineclassic.com.
