Food & Wine Classic Charleston 2026: What to Book

A guest enjoys the food at a previous Food & Wine Classic in Charleston Grand Tasting.

Book the Food & Wine Classic in Charleston if you want a concentrated November weekend of chef sessions, Grand Tastings and hard-to-get Charleston tables. It returns November 13 to 15, 2026, with Eric Ripert, Nancy Silverton, Kwame Onwuachi, Carla Hall, Tyler Florence and more than 60 other chefs and drinks experts spread across downtown Charleston. It is the festival’s third year in the city, run by Food & Wine with Southern Living and Travel + Leisure. Pearl members save $500 on the Classic Pass, which brings it from $1,950 to $1,450 before fees.¹²

Use this guide to decide what to book first: the five live sessions included with your pass, the four Grand Tastings, the evening events with tickets still available, and the Charleston restaurants and hotels worth reserving early. If you are coming mainly for wine, wine collector’s guide to the Classic covers the producers and wine seminars in more depth.

Food & Wine Classic Charleston 2026 schedule

The weekend works best if you treat Friday and Saturday as full festival days and Sunday as a shorter final session. Friday and Saturday follow the same rhythm: the first live sessions start at 10 am in the Gaillard Center, Charleston Place, Emeline and People Inc. Studios. At noon everyone moves to the Charleston Visitor Center at 375 Meeting Street for a two-hour Grand Tasting. A second session window runs from 3 to 4 pm, and a second Grand Tasting from 4:30 to 6:30 pm. Sunday has a single 10 am window and no Grand Tasting.³

Need help planning the weekend? Contact hello@joinpearl.co.

Every venue is on the downtown peninsula, within walking distance of the others. Seats in the live sessions are pre-registered with your pass. Arrive at least 15 minutes before a session starts; late arrivals can lose their seat to the standby line.⁴

Friday’s oyster roast and Saturday’s tailgate are the festival’s two ticketed evening parties, and tickets are still available for both. Otherwise the evenings are yours for Charleston’s restaurants and bars.

Chefs to build your five sessions around

A Classic Pass includes five live sessions, one per time window, chosen from more than 40. Prioritize the names below if you want the clearest return on the pass.⁵

Eric Ripert sits down with CNBC’s Scott Wapner for “A Fireside Chat with Eric Ripert” on Friday from 3 to 4 pm, session #204 on the Gaillard Stage. Ripert is the chef and co-owner of Le Bernardin, which has held three Michelin stars in New York for years. Choose this over a cooking demo if you want Ripert on restaurants, seafood and how he works rather than a dish-by-dish demonstration.⁶⁷

Nancy Silverton cooks in “In the Best New Chef Kitchen: Celebrating 20 Years of Pizzeria Mozza” on Saturday from 10 to 11 am, #303 in Gaillard 3. She co-owns the Mozza Restaurant Group, including Pizzeria Mozza, Osteria Mozza and chi SPACCA in Los Angeles. She has won five James Beard Awards, most recently the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award, and founded La Brea Bakery.⁸

Kwame Onwuachi talks with Food & Wine editor Hunter Lewis in “In Conversation: What Kwame Onwuachi Really Wants to Eat” on Saturday from 9:30 to 10:30 am, #304 on the Gaillard Stage. It overlaps the 10 am sessions, so booking him means skipping Silverton, Mike Lata and the other Saturday morning choices. He also cooks at Saturday night’s tailgate.⁵⁹

Carla Hall and Tyler Florence share the Friday 10 am window. Hall’s “Carla Bakes: Sweet, Savory, and From the Heart” (#102, Gaillard 2) draws on her baking book, Carla Hall Bakes. Florence’s “Crispy Business: Legendary Fried Chicken and All the Fixin’s” (#101, Gaillard 1) is the session for fried chicken; his restaurants include Wayfare Tavern and Miller & Lux in San Francisco.¹⁰¹¹

The rest of the cooking programme covers a lot of ground. Martin Yan and Melissa King cook Chinese food together in “Yan Can Cook, King Can Too” (#202). Rick Martinez cooks from his book in “Mi Cocina: The Food That Made Mexico Home” (#201). Nyesha Arrington’s “South Meets Seoul” (#402) is about Afro-Korean cooking. Andrew Zimmern breaks down famous restaurant dishes (#302), Katie Button and Dan Pashman cook pasta (#403), and Maneet Chauhan closes the weekend with “A Very Tandoori Thanksgiving” (#502).⁵

Charleston chefs to prioritize

Mike Lata, chef and co-owner of FIG and The Ordinary, cooks Lowcountry seafood in “High Tide: A Taste of the Coast” on Saturday at 10 am (#301, Gaillard 1). He also cooks at Friday’s oyster roast. If you cannot fit his session in, book dinner at The Ordinary, his seafood hall on Upper King Street, instead.¹²

Amethyst Ganaway, a Charleston-born chef and writer, joins Kat Kinsman on Sunday at 10 am for “Grown, Gathered, and Told: The Flavorful Story of Gullah Geechee Cuisine” (#503, Gaillard 3). Gullah Geechee cooking comes from the descendants of enslaved West and Central Africans on the Lowcountry coast and runs through much of what Charleston eats today. Choose this session for context, or Corey Alston’s “The Gullah Experience” workshop on Saturday afternoon (#410) for the hands-on version.¹³

James London, who opened the seafood restaurant Chubby Fish, cooks with Andrew Zimmern in “The New Surf and Turf” on Sunday morning (#501). Barbecue gets its own panel on Friday morning, “American Smoke: Pitmasters on the Future of Barbecue” (#105), with Shuai Wang, Hector Garate and Clay Williams. Bethany Heinze, co-owner and beverage director of the Michelin-starred Vern’s, is on Friday’s “At Your Leisure: Porch-Perfect Wines and Cocktails” panel (#108).¹⁴¹⁵

Grand Tastings, evening events and outings

The Grand Tasting is the walk-around part of the weekend: more than 100 purveyors of wine, spirits, cocktails and bites from local and visiting chefs, plus book signings with festival talent and a Classic Marketplace of local retailers. Each of the four sessions serves different food, and all four are included in the Classic Pass.³¹

Treat the noon session as lunch and the 4:30 session as a long early-evening reception. The bites are small but they add up across two hours, so a dinner reservation at 8 pm or later works better than one at 7. Check the signing schedule when you arrive if there is a cookbook you want signed, and leave time in the final Saturday session for the marketplace.

The Classic sells its evening parties and daytime outings separately, and each one requires a Classic Pass as well. As of October 13, 2026, tickets are still available for the oyster roast and tailgate, and a few remain for both Sea to Table outings. The other signature experiences are sold out. Book soon, since tickets are limited.⁹

Pearls of the Coast: A Lowcountry Oyster Roast is Friday night at American Gardens from 6:30 to 9:30 pm. Oysters are roasted over live fire, with a raw bar, cocktails, wine and live music outdoors. Mike Lata, Nyesha Arrington, Terrell “Burg” Brown, Hector Garate, Trey McMillan and Shuai Wang are among the chefs.

The Lowcountry Tailgate is Saturday night in the College of Charleston’s Cistern Yard from 6 to 9:30 pm, with burgers from George Motz, barbecue, cocktails, college football and live music from Penelope Road. Kwame Onwuachi, Maneet Chauhan, John Lewis of Lewis Barbecue, Elliott Moss, Lewis Donald and Robbie Robinson are among the cooks. It starts during Saturday’s last Grand Tasting, so do not plan on doing both in full.

Sea to Table pairs a morning of crabbing on the Ashley River with Tia Clark of Casual Crabbing with Tia and a chef’s lunch: Alec Gropman at By The Way on Friday, Lamont Ferrebee at 82 Queen on Sunday. The Lowcountry Oyster Farm Tour on Thursday visits Lowcountry Oyster Co. in Green Pond, about an hour and a half from downtown, with transport provided, a walk through the farm and a boat ride to see oysters growing in the water.

The rest are about the city itself: Bulldog Tours’ walks through the homes and gardens south of Broad Street and through the Revolutionary War history of the Historic District, a sail on Charleston’s only three-masted tall ship, and the Sunday Slice, a pizza wrap party for chefs and the hospitality industry.

Where to eat and drink in Charleston that weekend

With the festival bringing thousands of visitors downtown, the restaurants below will book up for Friday and Saturday night. Reserve as soon as you have your pass.

Night Out With F&W dinners. The festival runs special dinners at Charleston restaurants that you can book with or without a Classic Pass. A Night in Amalfi at Sorelle runs Friday, November 13 and Saturday, November 14 for $400 including wine pairings, tax and gratuity. The other three are all on Saturday, November 14. The Fifth Vintage at Brasserie La Banque is $300 including tax and gratuity. Graft Wine Shop & Wine Bar and Tutti Pizza host A Turkey and a Tuna Walk Into a Bar for $100. Merci: A Chef’s Table Experience with chef Michael Zentner is $500 including food and drink. Seats are limited and non-refundable. View the Night Out With F&W dinners.

The Michelin-starred tables. Charleston’s first Michelin stars came in the 2025 American South guide, and three went to the city.¹⁶ Vern’s, from Daniel and Bethany Heinze, is a bistro known for its pasta, roast chicken and sourdough. Malagón Mercado y Taperia is a Spanish tapas bar and market. Wild Common serves a seasonal tasting menu and holds a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence.

Where the festival chefs cook. FIG and The Ordinary are Mike Lata’s. Chubby Fish is James London’s seafood restaurant, named one of America’s best restaurants by The New York Times in 2025. Lewis Barbecue is John Lewis’s Texas-style smokehouse. John Lewis also cooks at Saturday’s tailgate.

Charleston standards. Husk cooks with Southern ingredients in a house on Queen Street. Peninsula Grill is a Relais & Châteaux dining room. Rodney Scott’s BBQ, a Michelin Bib Gourmand, smokes whole hog. Xiao Bao Biscuit, Sorelle and the raw bar 167 Raw are good for lunch on Sunday after the last sessions.

For a drink after the tastings. Graft Wine Shop & Wine Bar belongs to Femi Oyediran and Miles White, who lead the festival’s Grenache and spice seminars, and has been a James Beard Award semifinalist in 2025 and 2026. Doar Bros and The Gin Joint are two of the city’s cocktail bars.

Where to stay near the Food & Wine Classic

Staying in a session venue saves the walk. The Charleston Place, a Forbes Four-Star hotel on Meeting Street, hosts four of the seminar rooms. Emeline, near the City Market, hosts the Emeline Ballroom sessions.

Two hotels on Marion Square sit close to both the Gaillard Center and the Visitor Center: Hotel Bennett and The Dewberry, each with one Michelin Key. For a quieter stay, The Loutrel holds two Michelin Keys, The Pinch one, and Zero George was on Condé Nast Traveler’s Gold List in 2025.

Every cooking demonstration, talk and workshop

Use this full programme after you have picked your priority names. Choose one per time window, subject to availability. The wine, beer and cocktail seminars are listed after the table.⁵

The drinks seminars run in the same windows at Charleston Place and the Emeline Ballroom: Champagne with Ray Isle, June Rodil and Anthony Giglio (#208), Grenache with Femi Oyediran and Miles White (#308), a $20 versus $200 blind tasting (#309), wines for oysters (#206) and fried chicken (#207 and #407), Lowcountry food and wine (#409), cocktails with Tiffanie Barriere (#205 and #405), Weller bourbon (#209) and beer with snacks (#107 and #307). wine guide to the Classic goes through each of them.

What the Food & Wine Classic weekend costs

The Classic Pass is $1,950 before fees, or $1,450 for Pearl members. It covers the four Grand Tastings, five live sessions and access to buy the signature experiences. Guests must be 21 or older, and all purchases are final and nonrefundable.¹

On top of the pass, budget for dinners out on Friday and Saturday, your hotel, and $295 before fees for each evening party you add.

Need help planning your weekend? Contact hello@joinpearl.co.

Frequently asked questions

When and where is the Food & Wine Classic in Charleston 2026?

November 13 to 15, 2026, in downtown Charleston. The Grand Tastings are at the Charleston Visitor Center, 375 Meeting Street, and the live sessions are at the Gaillard Center, The Charleston Place, Emeline and People Inc. Studios.

Can I walk between the venues?

Yes. All of them are on the downtown peninsula, within walking distance of each other.

Are the oyster roast and tailgate included in the pass?

No. Each needs its own $295 ticket on top of a Classic Pass. Tickets are still available as of October 13, 2026, but they are limited.

Do I need restaurant reservations?

For Friday and Saturday dinner, yes. The festival brings a large crowd downtown that weekend, so book as soon as you have your pass.

Does the pass include a meal with Eric Ripert or Nancy Silverton?

No. Ripert’s session is a conversation and Silverton’s is a cooking demonstration. Neither includes a private meal or individual time with the chef.

Is this the same event as Charleston Wine + Food?

No. Charleston Wine + Food is a separate festival held in March. The Food & Wine Classic is the November event from Food & Wine, Southern Living and Travel + Leisure.

Image credits: Food & Wine Classic in Charleston. Photographs from previous editions.