'Top Chef' Joe Sasto heads to Martha's Vineyard Food & Wine Festival. Who else is coming?

Celebrity chefs Amanda Freitag ("Iron Chef," "Chopped," "Beat Bobby Flay"), Joe Sasto ("Top Chef," "Chopped") and Jonathan Waxman ("Top Chef," James Beard Best Chef: New York City) are headed to Martha's Vineyard June 6-9 for the island's food and wine festival.

The Martha’s Vineyard Food & Wine Festival returns June 6-9 with hopes of better weather than at last year’s October celebration and a new collaboration with the James Beard Foundation.

The association, with one of the world’s most esteemed culinary institutions, is pairing up internationally known chefs with award-winning Vineyard chefs, in this case, Atria’s Christian Thornton, for a private dinner.

The $550 ticket includes multiple courses presented by the chefs, as well as wines paired with each course.

“Jonathan Waxman is somebody who has proven himself on the world stage. This is going to set a standard for our food and wine pairings in years to come,” said Adam Epstein, executive director of the Vineyard Arts & Culture Foundation, which receives festival proceeds.

Waxman, one of 10 James Beard award winners scheduled to be at this year’s island festival, is a classically trained chef in France who is now chef/owner of Michelin Guide-listed Barbuto in Manhattan’s West Village and Jams at 1 Hotel Central Park. Waxman was named Best Chef in New York City by the Beard foundation in 2016.

He is paired with Atria’s executive chef Thornton, who, Epstein said, has been involved with the food and wine weekend since its inception more than a decade ago.

Thornton did not reply to the Cape Cod Times phone and email requests for a chef’s perspective.

“For me,” Epstein said, “the real pinnacle of these events is the private dinners: Having the ability to watch an artist curate a meal with multiple courses that last for hours – where one course builds on the flavors of the (one before it) – you can’t understate the value of that. That’s what fine dining is all about.”

This year’s festival features 13 events, including five private dinners where visiting chefs are paired with Vineyard chefs. There are also grand tastings at the Harbor View Hotel and Winnetu Oceanside Resort that feature winemakers and restaurant chefs working together for receptions where guests can, generally for $200 each, sample all foods and wines while mingling.

Master classes added

New this year are master classes, such as “Mastering Pasta: Artisanal Techniques of Gnocchi” with “Top Chef” alum Joe Sasto. The $175 workshop at noon Friday includes lunch prepared by chef Sasto at the Bettini Restaurant at the Harbor View Hotel.

Epstein said the goal of the Martha’s Vineyard Food & Wine Festival is to offer a slate of activities that attract people for the three-day weekend, helping to fill restaurants and hotels in the shoulder season.

As CEO of Innovation Arts & Entertainment, Epstein two years ago won the right to stage the Martha’s Vineyard Food and Wine Festival, as well as Beach Road Weekend.

The food and wine fest was scheduled for June this year in place of last year’s October weekend which brought cold rain and meant most guests came from the island instead of the region, he said, and the festival lost money in its first year with Innovation Arts.

“It’s expensive to do anything on the island because we have to pay to fly chefs in and all the ingredients they may need,” Epstein said.

The Martha’s Vineyard Food & Wine Festival was started by the island’s board of trade in 2009 and operated for more than a decade, Epstein said, before reaching out to professional organizers because it had grown too big to be run by volunteers.

“The ticket prices may seem steep but not when you consider how much you are getting with having chefs here that you would otherwise have to visit New York or Chicago to eat their food,” Epstein said.

Gwenn Friss is the editor of CapeWeek and covers entertainment, restaurants and the arts. Contact her at gfriss@capecodonline.com. Follow her or X, formerly Twitter: @dailyrecipeCCTThanks to our subscribers, who help make this coverage possible. If you are not a subscriber, please consider supporting quality local journalism with a Cape Cod Times subscription. Here are our subscription plans.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: James Beard, celebrity chefs headed to Martha's Vineyard. Here's why.