How South Beach Wine & Food Festival is celebrating Black excellence

Even before his first invitation to the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, Travis Reece was used to working in the orbit of celebrities — including Kanye West, Travis Scott and Tristan Thompson — as a personal chef.

Now, the owner of Chef Reece Kitchen in Pembroke Pines will again be famous-adjacent at the star-studded smorgasbord, which runs Thursday through Sunday at venues throughout Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

A top-billed chef, Reece will be preparing his Jamaican fusion poolside alongside 13 other tastemakers at the Eden Roc Miami Beach as part of Saturday’s The Cookout, one of several newish events saluting Black culinary excellence. The Cookout will be hosted by James Beard Award-winning chef and TV personality JJ Johnson (Netflix’s “Street Food,” Food Network’s “Chopped,” Max’s “Selena + Chef”) and radio star Angela Yee (iHeartMedia’s “Way Up with Angela Yee”).

Organizers say the event, which sold out its inaugural edition in 2023, is on track to again sell out its 500-person gathering and has gained new beer and liquor sponsors this year. It touts an impressive lineup of Black chefs, among them Tristen Epps of Eden Roc and Karim Bryant of Overtown’s Lil Greenhouse Grill.

There will be dishes such as grilled tiger shrimp with mango salsa from J. Santiago of Miami’s J. Adel’s Eatery, fried chicken from Amaris Jones of Miami Beach’s Chick’N Jones, and citrus pork belly from Justin Gaines of North Carolina’s Tap@1918. For his part, Reece plans to serve his Stella Artois-braised oxtail with red pickled onions and jalapeño-cheddar cornbread.

Cooking Jamaican fusion

Reece, 30, grew up on his grandma’s vegetable and cattle farm in Jamaica’s Saint Elizabeth parish, where he says “there’s nothing to do except just wake up, live and create your own job.” So, he said, he gave away fresh corn to the neighbors, grew chocho and turnips, raised goats and cows, and learned to cook farm-to-table recipes for the community.

When he moved to the United States in 2011, Reece cooked in various restaurants until a chef-mentor invited him to cater Kanye West’s “Donda” concert tour, which in turn unlocked private gigs in Miami.

He hungered to cook Jamaican fusion for wider audiences, so he opened Chef Reece Kitchen in early 2023 out of a Chevron gas station on Pembroke Road. Here, he flips honey-glazed salmon on the grill and serves oxtail pasta braised in barbecue sauce and jerk seasonings, letting it simmer in shallots, scallions, thyme and Scotch bonnet peppers sourced from Ms. Millie’s Farm in Davie.

“The shallots you won’t find in most Jamaican restaurants, but they’re more potent in terms of herbaceous flavors,” Reece said. “We infuse the pasta with broccoli and Cajun-Creole spices, so it puts a good energy in you.”

Event cohost Johnson says he debuted a prototype of The Cookout in 2022 at the James Beard Foundation Awards in Chicago but formally added the Black-centric gathering to 2023’s South Beach Wine & Food Festival. Now he fires it up twice a year, once in February and again at the festival’s Big Apple offshoot, the New York City Wine & Food Festival.

“When Black people hear ‘The Cookout,’ they know it’s an event made for them, their culture, their fellowship,” said Johnson, a Harlem-based chef who owns Fieldtrip, a mini-chain of fast-casual rice bowl shops in New York City. “You can’t just pinpoint Black cuisine on a map. It’s Caribbean to West African to Southern to off the coast of Puerto Rico or Brazil.”

‘Respected and normalized’

The Cookout and other Black-focused events came to the festival lineup in 2023 after years of criticisms from Black restaurant owners and media personalities, who complained the South Beach Wine & Food Festival failed to include them and instead marketed itself toward white chefs and ticket-buyers.

This year, there’s also Overtown EatUp! on Sunday and two Friday dinners: at Eden Roc featuring Mashama Bailey (The Grey), Tiffany Derry (Roots Chicken Shak), Tristen Epps (Eden Roc) and Vallery Lomas (“The Great American Baking Show” season 3 winner); and at Joliet in Miami Beach featuring Johnson and Kurtis Jantz (Trump International Beach Resort Miami).

So far, The Cookout stands among the festival’s strongest success stories — and a proving ground for the festival’s wider acceptance of African-American diaspora cuisine, Johnson said.

Suzan McDowell, a veteran local publicist and a producer of The Cookout, agreed.

“Black people have mouths and taste buds and American Express cards,” she said. “It gets proven with money, and The Cookout is just a great, profitable event.”

Not everyone has been happy with the festival’s approach. Starex Smith, a food blogger who posts under the moniker “The Hungry Black Man,” blasted the festival on social media this month, saying organizers are perpetuating Black stereotypes after his Miami restaurant, Smith & Webster, was invited to a fried chicken event called Chicken Coupe.

“It felt tone-deaf,” Smith told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “We need Black representation but not Black-driven events. I just want us to be respected and normalized.”

Yvette Harris, a South Florida publicist and prominent voice who once also vented on social media about the festival’s lack of diversity in the chef lineup, judges and events, now says the 23-year-old festival is “in a good, growing place.”

“I know change is uncomfortable, but there’s definitely been a shift to be more inclusive since I went on my Facebook rant,” Harris said. “But if we’ve still got the same four events in five years, I’ll have a different answer.”

Event founder Lee Schrager says the number of festival sessions focused on Black excellence will keep growing, though he admits there aren’t enough yet.

“If you look at the amount of diversity and the number of Black and brown chefs participating, I don’t think anyone has made a more concerted effort than us,” Schrager says. “Will we do more? Yes. Are we done? No. Until more people are heard and seen and understood, that will never be enough for me.”

‘The vibes are going to be strong’

Another big gathering this year is Overtown EatUp! on Sunday, which spotlights eateries across the historically Black neighborhood.

Hosted by Red Rooster Overtown chef Marcus Samuelsson, the jazzy event is an offshoot of his 10-year-old Harlem EatUp! dinner series. He created Miami’s event in 2023 after seeing similarities between the New York neighborhood and Overtown’s rich legacy of Black music, arts and food.

Local participating chefs this year will include Derrick Turton of World Famous House of Mac, Daren Reid of PurpleLit Oyster Co. and Donaven Jackson of Jackson Bros. Ice Cream.

“This is such a great way to highlight some amazing Black chefs and small business owners in this historic and vibrant neighborhood of Miami,” Samuelsson says. “The vibes are going to be strong this year.”

Meanwhile, guests who attend Johnson’s 65-seat Joliet dinner will receive a copy of his new cookbook, “The Simple Art of Rice.” Though he grew up in a Caribbean household and his cooking leans Afro-Asian, Johnson said this menu will embrace his Puerto Rican heritage, and feature dishes such as chopped cheese empanadas, salted cod with tomato jam and sofrito lamb.

“And that’s South Florida, right?” Johnson says. “I want white and Black and Asian and Latino, because that’s what America is, and that’s what this festival should look like. I’m pushing behind the scenes to make it more of a collective space.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: 23rd annual South Beach Wine & Food Festival

WHEN: Thursday-Sunday

WHERE: Multiple venues across Miami-Dade County, including in Miami, Miami Beach and Overtown, with two Broward County gatherings in Hallandale Beach

COST: Events not yet sold out range in price from $150 to $1,000

INFORMATION: sobewff.org