Year after year, Pebble Beach Food & Wine lures food lovers, chefs, and wineries to the California coast for a festival that feels decadent, yet somehow deeply personal. At the helm is Brett Friedman, co-founder of a21, the juggernaut behind such star-studded gatherings as the South Beach Wine & Food Festival. This year, he's helped orchestrate a congregation of over 150 wineries and sprits, just as many chefs, and more than 40 events from April 10-13.
Sitting down with CULTURED, Friedman unveils the secret sauce that keeps Pebble Beach feeling intimate (even as it grows), explains his go-to whiskey ritual (think a splash of water or a single cube), and teases future expansions that move the experience beyond the culinary. His mission? Ensure that attendees, from novices to serious collectors, enter a world where excellence and authenticity come first—and plan their return before they’ve even set down their final glass.
CULTURED: With each passing year, Pebble Beach Food and Wine seems to grow in both scope and reputation. How have you managed to maintain this intimate, exclusive feel amid that expansion?
Brett Friedman: Our agency is the largest culinary events agency in the entire country. It's probably the largest culinary events agency in the world in terms of the volume of culinary projects that we oversee. So, how do we keep that intimacy? We are driven by quality and excellence, just like Pebble Beach Company. Our entire initiative with that project is not only to make it the most prestigious on the West Coast, but to make it one of the most prestigious in the entire country.
The South Beach Wine and Food Festival, which we've had the honor and pleasure of being the agency of record for 19 years [running], is really like the Super Bowl. It's grand and massive and incredible. However, for pure prestige, there is a limited volume of people, right under 10,000, but there is excellence across the board from the amazing chefs, the amazing wineries and spirits, the location, and so on. That's always the goal: to slightly raise the bar by doing everything with a first-class quality lens. That's what we do.
CULTURED: What else do you think makes an excellent food festival?
Friedman: Location. What makes Pebble Beach Food & Wine so special is doing it at Spanish Bay. It's hard not to walk into that property and immediately fall in love and relax. Your shoulders kind of go down and go ahh. It's that feeling of walking into a spa. You’re just immediately like, "I just went into a Zen state." That's what Pebble Beach Company does. You're seeing these gorgeous, world-class golf courses, whether you're a golfer or not, which, by the way, I am not. Part of the reason we were brought on is to create more of a lifestyle lens. The waves are crashing against the cliffs, and everything is meticulously manicured. That's always what we look for when we're searching for these places—it has to speak to you.
CULTURED: What are three words that you would use to describe Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival?
Friedman: Beauty—it’s hard not to just immediately fall in love with everything in that community that is Pebble Beach and Monterey. Excellence—I think that word is overused, but the quality and excellence that we deliver and hold ourselves to ... is just top of the line and that is the expectation. And unique. Prestigious chefs that come in, from Nancy Silverton to Alice Waters, who we’re honoring this year, to Nina Compton from New Orleans and of course all the amazing Food Network talent like Giada [De Laurentiis]. That is unique, with the James Beard Foundation affiliation. Then, when you factor in some of the best winemakers in the world, who travel to do their seminars and dinners, our dinner pairings have some of the best mixologists and winemakers and quality chefs. I mean, I just don't know many culinary events that have that secret sauce of a formula. Pebble Beach Food & Wine does.
CULTURED: This year's whiskey programming is generating a lot of buzz. Which rare pours or standout experiences should guests be most excited about?
Friedman: I was a huge Macallan enthusiast for like 20 years of my life and now I'm a huge bourbon enthusiast. I've actually made this weird transition while still respecting and loving both. I don't know of any event in the country that has the caliber of seminars we're doing this year, all in the same location. It's not just Macallan 12 and 18. We're literally going with Macallan to 25, 30s, and some of their rare, unique pours. And then Last Drop, which is the rarest bourbon in the world. Brand ambassadors are flying in because it's a collaboration with Scotland and America. I challenge you to find a better two pairings in one event in the world in 2025. I'm ready to geek out like you will and I'm equally excited about both.
CULTURED: I can already see the headline. "Brett Friedman challenges you..." What is your favorite way to have your whiskey?
Friedman: I like a little hint of cold with a little bit of water, but I will drink it neat with a drop. If you ever do a professional whiskey seminar or tasting, they'll always give you a little water droplet. I'm okay with either. But personally, I like one cube.
CULTURED: From last-minute chef cancellations to spectacular surprises, can you share the wildest behind the scenes moment you've encountered while producing the fair?
Friedman: It is always chaos. If you've never produced an event and you just show up as an attendee, you kind of marvel at almost the simplicity of this chaotic, moving series of incidents or moments. But what people don't know is all the behind the scenes that goes into creating an event, which is thousands and thousands of hours of moving pieces—from travel to coordinations with partners, to soliciting chefs, securing chefs, putting the chefs up. It’s menu creations, wine pairings, etc. From my team alone, there are over 30 people that work on that project, let alone everybody from Pebble Beach Company and let alone all the chefs. We have 181 chefs participating, of which more than 50 percent are flying in. So when you've actually launched the event, you're kind of like, It's done, all the mistakes and all of the problems are there in the past. What I love about what I do is how unpredictable the end result will be. But what I also love about what I do is going through that majestic four or five days of an event and how anticlimactic it is when it ends. Because guess what? It just ends, you know? And we move on to our next project while we start immediately planning the following years. That's the event business.
CULTURED: It's like being behind the scenes at an incredible kitchen. Knives are being thrown around, flames are in the air, and chefs are getting burned. Then, the plate leaves the kitchen, and it's just like, "Enjoy!"
Friedman: It's super messy and dirty. There were so many different people that touched the creation of that entity, but you only saw the finished product. That's what our job is: to ensure that the end consumer only sees an incredible finished product. They know none of the behind the scenes, none of the snafus, none of the power issues, none of the technical issues where the sound isn't working, none of the chefs that didn't show up that year, none of the chefs that ran out of food, none of the signage that showed up with a mistake. That's the job.
CULTURED: How does the fair's current iteration differ from what you first envisioned when you started out?
Friedman: When we were brought on by the Pebble Beach Company and the Pebble Beach Foundation, we had a five-year strategy. From a true nerdy business standpoint, we're exactly where we're supposed to be. What we love to see is that we've had greater chef or culinary interest than we expected. Year over year, we've actually increased from 130 chefs to 181 chefs participating. I would again challenge anybody to show better wine and spirit seminars than what we will put together over a four-day period. We're right on our trajectory. You will see some interesting challenges that complement what we're doing now over the coming years, which further lend themselves to a lifestyle presence outside of just culinary. I'll leave that as a tease.
CULTURED: With so many dishes on offer, do you have a personal favorite you look forward to every year?
Friedman: It's really the wine and the spirits that I look forward to. I mean, come on, celebrating 50 years of Tignanello as a wine geek who's had the pleasure of visiting. I'm looking forward to that with a member of the Antinori family who's flying in for it. As I referenced, the Last Drop, I can't wait to go through that and to just be a nerd. God, I mean, you're talking about bottles that are $20,000 or $30,000 that this one time you’ll be fortunate to try. I'm always pleased to be able to be together with several people I respect. That's the rarity or uniqueness of what Pebble is, because it's very rare to get everyone together. That's what I look forward to the most.
CULTURED: You're on the beach and you're drinking and eating one thing. What are those two things?
Friedman: The irony is that as a total third-generation Miami kid, I never go to the beach. But if I were in my Zen state chilling or on a hike, what would be my liquid of choice? I would always be having a Cabernet. I'm very passionate about Napa Valley. If I were eating something, this is the naughty side. Fried mozzarella, man. I love mozzarella sticks.
CULTURED: Whoa.
Friedman: It makes me the happiest human to give me a really expensive Napa Cabernet with some fried mozzarella. The grin is Joker-style. I'm the happiest dude ever.
