The Hot Food Festival Scoop

Scott Gries / Getty Images Bill Clinton joins the biggest names in the food business at this year’s New York Wine & Food Festival—the culinary world’s equivalent to Fashion Week. Katie Workman talks to the event’s organizer.

In the culinary world, event-organizer extraordinaire Lee Schrager has cemented his reputation as a force of nature. He knows everyone, he is everywhere, he makes things happen, and he probably doesn’t sleep a whole heck of a lot. Schrager’s next extravaganza is the New York Wine & Food Festival—this is his second year spearheading the New York version of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, which has become the foodie mecca of springtime.

“There are very few events where there is a dinner happening for the King of Spain and Ferrán Adriá is there, and blocks away you have Paula Deen with her pants falling down.”

We hear you scored Bill Clinton for the New York Wine & Food Festival this year. How’d you do that?

It really started with Rachael Ray, who had suggested doing something at The Harlem Children’s Zone with Bill, and then Mehmet Oz also mentioned it and I thought, “Oh, of course!” We’re doing a program there about raising a healthy eater—it’s free, there’s a health fair beforehand. Bill’s going to do the welcome address and take questions because of his interest in preventing childhood obesity. Rachael put me in touch with his alliance—it was a very quick yes. We’re unveiling a good food garden we built with Share Our Strength. With the debacle of wine and food that will be taking place about five miles south, it’s kind of interesting.

There are 118 events at the festival. Which will you attend yourself?

All 118! No, it’s hard; you can’t get to more than 40. I’ll do as many as many as I can—the Chelsea opening-night party, the Burger Bash on Friday night in Dumbo, the closing Meatball Madness party with Giada. There are 180 chefs participating, and I won’t get to say hello to anywhere close to half of them.

I really like the panels in the Meatpacking District, like the wine seminars. But I don’t know that there’s one that I could ever sit down for, for the full hour and 20 minutes and see the whole thing; I just don’t have that kind of time during the festival. Josh Wesson is doing a great seminar on wine parings. Spike [Mendelsohn], the former Top Chef contestant who won Burger Bash in South Beach, is doing a hamburger tasting paired with different wines, which I am looking forward to. The smaller events hold the most interest to me; there’s more learning involved.

At the last South Beach Wine & Food Festival, the mini-drama was Mario Batali’s colorful language while speaking at the dinner in honor of the king and queen of Spain. Feathers were ruffled, and it made a headline or two. But we hear you and Mario are OK again, and that he’s coming to the festival. What’s he going to be doing?

For a while after South Beach, Mario and I didn’t speak or email. But then he emailed me about something having to do with the Food Bank, which we’re both involved with. I replied, we went back and forth, and he said that if he had embarrassed me, he was sorry. That was as good as anything I could have gotten out of Mario, so we moved on. It would be a mistake not to have Mario involved in a big food and wine event, both for me and for him. It was a little uncomfortable figuring out what he was going to do in New York, but he’s going to do a Times Talk on Saturday night. What bothered me most about the incident with Mario was that there was no closure for so long. He’s a grown man, he’s not my child; but it was embarrassing, and then, hey, shit happens. He apologized; we moved on, life is too short. I have a lot of respect for him; he’s one of the best chef/operators in the country. It didn’t behoove me not to deal with Mario, and he may feel the same way about me, and I’m happy we’ve moved forward.

Good news that it’s water under the bridge. Will there be any royalty at the festival this year?

Culinary royalty! No, no royalty. But I would not be surprised if we weren’t talking about royalty in South Beach this year. I mean, you should expect a very distinguished visit from Europe in South Beach this year.