Bern's Winefest No. 22

An Unforgettable Weekend with Bern's Winefest! 

I have absolutely no clue where to begin this post because so much happened in one weekend.  I guess I'll start all the way back during my senior year of high school.  Everyone knows how expensive college can be, especially when attending a private university like Johnson & Wales.  So my senior year, I dedicated most of my time to applying to hundreds of scholarships.  One of the most important ones that I won, was the Bern Laxer Memorial Scholarship.  They have provided me with an amazing scholarship as well as support in my education.  The Winefest event was an incredible learning experience for me, between the chefs that I was able to meet and the food I got to try- it's something I will never forget. 

A little bit more about the foundation-  The Laxer Family foundation is able to advocate for many causes through their compassion and profession.  The Laxer family supports others such as Make-a-Wish Foundation, Vinny LeCavalier Foundation for Pediatric Cancer and most recently for 11 years, they've established Culinary Scholarships through the James Beard Foundation.  That's where I come into play, the chef at Bern's Steakhouse, Habteab Hamde, told me that I am only the second person to win this scholarship from the Laxer family.  For this, I feel honored that they invited me to such an extravagant event.  

Bern's Winefest- I was honored to be the recipient of a wonderful scholarship as well as an all-expense paid a trip to Tampa so I could be a part of this amazing organizations fundraising event.  On Saturday, April 13th, I flew from Miami to Tampa where the events would begin.  

When I arrived, I had a delicious breakfast with my parents at Elevage, the restaurant at the Epicurean Hotel where I would be staying for the next 2 nights. For breakfast, I had a simple omelet that had so much flavor!  Also, if you know me at all you know that I absolutely have to have my coffee!  The coffee at both the hotel and the restaurant was amazing, so good I even had one cup black!    After breakfast, the prep for the weekends' events began.  I spent my morning getting a tour of the beautiful property from the Executive chef Chad Johnson.  Chef Chad was super nice and made sure that I had everything that I needed all weekend! He showed me the kitchen at the hotel for Elevage as well as the main kitchen where room service and event prep is done.  Then we took a short walk across the street to Bern's Steakhouse, the outside of the building was simple but elegant.  

I entered directly into the kitchen which was huge and everyone was hard at work for the Legacy Dinner.  This is a $1,200 dinner that has 5 courses and is the most exclusive event for the weekend.  I headed to the baking and pastry kitchen where I helped out the Executive Pastry Chef, Amber.  I also met the rest of the baking and pastry team, where I encountered many people that graduated from Johnson & Wales! It was great to talk to people that had the same training as me, and see where their education had taken them so far.  I had a hands-on experience helping out with Baked Alaska, where I learned how to make a meringue, and how to pipe it onto the cakes.  This was super fun and a little inside fact: the pastry kitchen doesn't use thermometers for anything- everything is done by looks and smells.  I learned unique strategies to help with this: if you can blow bubbles with the melted sugar for meringue it's ready!  Also, did you know that after making a meringue you have to keep it moving, or it will break or flatten.  For a meringue, you need to keep it with stiff peaks for the ideal texture.   

The next thing on the prep list was to prepare garnishes for the legacy dinner dessert.  The dessert was a vanilla bean cheesecake with a lemon glaze and candied strawberries.  Learning how to construct the different components of the dessert grew my love for gastronomy and food science.  Even though this was simple it was still changing the state of the strawberry.  I can only describe the flavor to a strawberry shortcake, but with a crunchy texture.    

After that I got an incredible tour from the restaurant's sommelier, I didn't catch her name but she was so nice just like the rest of the staff I met.  Now, the wine cellar could be a whole blog post on its own.  The cellar that I got to view was the small one and it held about 5,000 bottles per isle and was about 10-15 isles.  Now note that I said that this is the small wine cellar, the full-size one is across the street and the entire building is just filled with thousands of bottles of wine.  Quite literally, it is the largest wine cellar owned by one single person, that being David Laxer.  I was told that I could take pictures but that the could not be posted on social media and for that, I apologize that I can't share that incredible experience with all of you.  The nice lady that gave me the tour also told me some insider details about the cellar, they can find any single bottle of wine in as low as 40 seconds but never any longer than a minute.  They have so many bottles of wine, that they had to organize it in their own special way.  Not by year, or vineyard, red or white.  It's actually completely random!  As they received bottles when they very first opened they would give it a number and then number the slots for the wine, the slot and the bottle number have nothing to do with the type of wine!  Bern's Steakhouse has their own a wine bottle that is eight times the normal 750ml wine bottle! They also have a hand cut crystal decanter made especially for the bottle of wine!  The bottle is so large that it will have to age for another 40 years! 

I also got a tour of the dining rooms in Bern's Steakhouse from Chef Amber, the dining rooms each have their own theme, that you can see through the artwork and apparently the servers for each dining room also partake in displaying the theme of the room.  The servers move up from dining room to dining room as they progress in the restaurant.  The dessert room is absolutely incredible!  The tables are each in a partially enclosed space that are shaped like wine barrels! I thought that this was so creative and beautiful.  The dessert room has its very own piano player, and each table has a phone that you can call the piano player on to make song requests!  The whole dining experience at Bern's is one of a kind and very specialized to you and your evening.  Unfortenly, I didn't get any photos of the dining rooms, so you'll just have to go and see for yourself! 

Now moving away from the wine and back into the kitchen, the chef I mentioned previously is the CDC (Chef De Cuisine) of Bern's Steakhouse, his name is Habteab Hamde.  Chef Habteab has worked every single Winefest for a grand total of 22 Winefests.  For him, I made 500 bellinis which are like small pancakes, used to serve caviar.  This was the first time I got to see the hotline, where everything goes down for dinner service.  The kitchen was beautiful with the hustle of tons of people in chef coats running around to get everything done.  I love to see how different restaurants operate, I always like to make notes of things I do and don't like so that if I ever open a restaurant I can have the ideal set up.

After working on the hotline, I had a personal interview set up for the foundation, where I talked about my experience at Winefest as well as, how I got my scholarship and how I got to where I am today.  They also took pictures of me at the event for the website, and social media.  

My first day ended with dessert plating for the Legacy dinner I talked about previously, pictures and videos below! 

4th Course of the Legacy Dinner

The second day is when the fun really began, I was let in through the VIP tent, at 10:30am, the event took place about 2 blocks down from the Epicurean Hotel.  I was led into the VIP tent where many chefs and restaurants were setting up their tables with samples of food.  There were tons of restaurants, my favorites were; The Mill, Rooster and the Til, Jamison B. Breadhouse Bakes, IL Ritorno, and Little Midway.  

There were two main rooms that had tastings, as well as a dining room with cheeses and crackers, and an outdoor area with tables outside where none other than, Apple Orchard was set up with their tastings.  The rooms were astonishing, between the decorations, tasting tables, and disco balls the rooms were indescribable.  The VIP room has a special theme each year, this year being the year of the pig for the Chinese new year, and the fact that Bern's Steakhouse's mascot is a pig, it worked out perfectly as a theme.  The year of the pig themed room, had Chinese themed foods, decorations, and even a giant pig statue.     

During the event, I was allowed to try all of the different foods and network myself with other chefs.  The Laxer family made me feel so included in the events, and we even took pictures together!  The chefs from The Mill and I ended up talking about Johnson & Wales while I tried their food.  The Chef I talked to graduated from the Denver campus, and I think it's amazing what a small world we live in that I can meet someone who graduated from the same school as me- but across the country, would end up meeting me right outside of my home town!  I also was formally introduced to the Chef of Jamison B. Breadhouse, he's an alumnus of the JWU campus right here in Miami! We got to chatting about different chefs that we've had at JWU.  It was so eye-opening to talk to people that have become successful with the same training as me. It made me realize how many doors are open for me that I don't even know about!  If there is one thing that I learned from Chef Long, my high school culinary instructor, it's to "talk and listen to everyone you meet dishwashers, chefs and servers" and I did exactly that at every event for the weekend.  Christina Laxer, David Laxer's wife, told me that it's important to take pictures and note who you met because you're making life long connections.  

The experiences I got in the two days of events were astonishing, I'm so happy that I got to attend the Bern's Winefest, and I hope I get the opportunity to go again!  I could never thank James Beard and the Laxer Family Foundation enough for planning this trip for me, and also for their support in my education and future.  I took so many pictures, that I decided to add them to my photo gallery, in order to keep this post from going on forever! 

Please message me on Facebook or comment below on this post if you have questions about any photos, or just about my experience in general, I would love to answer them.  I did so much that I know that I didn't include everything!  Be sure to subscribe to my email list to be notified when I post my review of The Mill's new location in Tampa, where I ate dinner after the event! 

Thank you so much for reading, from my kitchen to yours,

MallaryMade