This massive culinary festival is returning to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix
Devour Culinary Classic is returning to the Desert Botanical Garden on Feb. 25 and 26, 2023, after a three-year hiatus.
Organized by Local First Arizona, Southern Arizona Arts and Culture Alliance and Desert Botanical Garden almost 15 years ago, this culinary festival has since been hailed by the New York Times as the best culinary festival in the Southwest, where hundreds of the Valley’s chefs, food purveyors, wineries and artists came to offer a taste of Arizona.
It all began with a desire to shine “a bright light on our local chefs and restaurants, bringing our community together to celebrate the place we love,” said Kimber Lanning, CEO and Founder of Local First in a news release. And that’s what they plan to do again in 2023.
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What to expect at the 2023 Devour Culinary Classic
This year’s event will be very similar to the one held in 2020, said Lynita Johnson, Local First Arizona’s director of marketing and brand strategy.
Attendees will have the opportunity to sample food prepared by the participating restaurants and drinks from the wineries, bars and breweries during the event.
There will also be judges, including food critics and writers from national publications, who will anonymously taste the food and categorize the medalists into gold, silver, bronze and no medal.
In 2020, a fifth category of double gold went to the restaurants that received gold from all the judges.
Judges will be announced on the Devour Phoenix website in the coming months.
There are a few changes guests should be aware of. “We have reduced the number of entries each day from 1,500 to 1,200 to ease