The 20th annual Newport Mansions Wine and Food Festival brought out several icons of the food world to close out the last weekend of summer.
This event supports The Preservation Society of Newport County’s work to maintain a collection of 11 historic properties that the group says is vital to Newport’s tourism economy.
The featured chef this year was Marcus Samuelsson. You might recognize the name from his PBS program, “No Passport Required,” or his many Food Network and Top Chef appearances.
The Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised chef is now based in Harlem, but he agrees with many New Englanders’ sentiments about the region: It has a pretty great, and underrated, food scene.
“I think it's wonderful,” Samuelsson said. “I grew up in Gothenburg — this reminds me so much of the west coast of Sweden: access to great seafood, blue collar mentality, but also a rich history.”
The James Beard Award-winning culinary artist opened the festival with a chef collaboration dinner on Friday night.
The savory
Outside of the packed tasting tent on Saturday, Trudy Coxe was still blown away. She’s the executive director of the Preservation Society of Newport County, which puts on the event each year.
“He mixed beef with sea urchin. Now, who in their right mind would ever mix the two together? But he did, and people loved it,” Coxe said. “I. So it takes a creative chef to come up with that kind of combination.”
On the other side of the towering columns of the Rosecliff mansion, groups on the terrace were learning from seminars on the wines of Portugal, Alma de Jaguar tequila from Mexico, and French brandies including Delamain cognac and Larressingle armagnac.
This was the layout — as sprawling as the grounds — at the event.
The sweet
The beloved Connecticut institution Sift Bake Shop, which has a seasonal outpost in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, was in charge of desserts throughout the festival. At the chef collaboration dinner Friday night, Owner and Chef Adam Young served a new take on a popular cake.
“We're doing a black forest [cake] for that,” Young told Connecticut Public ahead of the festival. “You know the really popular Dubai chocolate bars, right? So we've added an element of that into the black forest, so it's like chocolate, pistachio, Morello cherry, creme fraiche, that sort of thing.”
The next day, Sous Chef Olivia Fink took over with some updates to the shop’s popular petit gâteau. The strawberries and cream got a twist with rhubarb.
“Then, we added saffron to the peach, so that it's peach saffron instead,” Fink said. “So we have a couple new things.”
Fink offered dessert service at the back patio of the Marble House, a once-Vanderbilt family property made entirely of marble. Sift’s table was stacked with mousse-filled bites, macarons, bon-bons and cookies.
Where can I eat?
New Englanders can try some of Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s food at the local locations of his fast-casual restaurant Streetbird in Connecticut and Rhode Island. They’re located within Wonder food halls, a dine-in and takeout cafeteria chain of sorts featuring a couple dozen restaurants.
Sift Bake Shop is located year-round in Mystic, Niantic and Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. The seasonal location in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, opens in the summertime.
