Join us at the Wilmington Wine and Food Festival
Tabletop Media Group is excited to announce that three of our clients will be participating in the Wilmington Wine & Food Festival. Please join us this May in Wilmington for a few days filled of food, drink and fun.
Chef Bud Taylor of the Bistro at Topsail in Surf City, North Carolina
Participating in the Corks & Forks Grand Tasting Event on Saturday, May 13th
Photography by Stacey Sprenz
Inspired by his childhood spent in the kitchen cooking with his family, Chef Bud Taylor incorporates Southern and Coastal ingredients and flavors into his cuisine. Having spent years in the marketing and design world, Chef Bud is a self-taught chef and has never attended culinary school. Chef Bud currently serves as the executive chef and owner of the Bistro at Topsail in Surf City, N.C. His menu offers delicious and unique takes on classic, Southern foods while incorporating ingredients from his farm and other local North Carolina suppliers.
Chef Keith Rhodes of Catch Restaurant in Wilmington, North Carolina
Chef Keith Rhodes is going to be doing some amazing events for the festival and he has invited a few outstanding chefs to team up with him for the festival. Details coming soon on the Wilmington Wine & Food Festival website!
Chef Keith Rhodes was born in Columbus, Ohio and relocated to Wilmington, North Carolina’s Cape Fear Coast. Growing up a vegetarian, he started eating and learning about seafood in his early teens. Surrounded by beaches, he spent many summers on the docks, watching the boats come in and immersing himself in all facets of seafood culture. Chef Rhodes is self taught and operates Catch Restaurant, Catch the Food Trucks and VOYCE Catering.
Chef Rhodes has been acknowledged by national press like Mens Fitness, Cooking Light, Coastal Living, Our State Magazine, New York Times, Food and Wine, The Local Palate Magazine, and Garden and Gun Magazine.
Chef Rhodes is a James Beard Best Chef Southeast nominee who works with the James Beard Foundation on food policy, sustainable seafood and food advocacy. Chef Rhodes is a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, Slow Foods and Chefs Collaboration. Chef Rhodes is a Bravo Top Chef Alumni and competed on Bravos Top Chef Season 9.
Pit Master Matthew Register of Southern Smoke BBQ in Garland, North Carolina
Participating in Bourbon & BBQ Derby Cocktail Party on Friday, May 12th
Photography by Baxter Miller of Bit + Grain
Recently named one of the “Great Chefs of the Cape Fear,” by Salt Magazine and featured on the TODAY Show, Chef Matthew Register is bringing his passion for southern cuisine to the masses. A resident of Garland, NC, Register owns Southern Smoke BBQ, named one of the top 25 BBQ restaurants in the US by Men's Journal, as well as South Catering, and Southern Smoke BBQ food truck. He is also the visionary of the South Supper Series, a private supper club event hosted on the Southern Smoke BBQ property. Menus have included cuisine from family traditions, the Low Country, and the Mississippi Delta.
Register has always had a passion for fine food and the outdoors, and he prides himself on incorporating fresh, local ingredients. Raised in rural, Eastern NC, he grew up in a community that formed inseparable bonds through deep rooted traditions at the dinner table. These traditions are ones that he hopes to sustain, not just for his three young children, but for his community and those who dine with him as well.
In 2010, Matthew began smoking pork the old-fashioned way, slow and low over oak wood. What started out as a mere hobby for him, inspired by his wife Jessica’s grandfather, very quickly turned into a local phenomenon. After working hard to learn as much as he could about food and developing his own culinary identity, he opened Southern Smoke BBQ in 2014. A champion of the farm to fork movement, Register uses a chalkboard menu and changes his menu regularly as locally grown ingredients become available.
The Wilmington Wine & Food Festival brings together top area chefs with the best of the wine, beer, and spirits industry to celebrate and advance public appreciation for great food and drink. The festival provides a diverse range of epicurean experiences showcasing the area's unique and rich culture and history. Proceeds from the 2017 events will benefit local charities including Fruit First Ministries.