Chef Shawn Osbey Helps Set the Table for the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival

Atlanta has never been shy about its food, and Chef Shawn Osbey understands better than most that the city’s culinary identity is built on both tradition and evolution. From September 10 through September 13, that identity will be on full display as the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival presented by Invesco QQQ returns for four days of food, wine, cocktails, music and some of the personalities helping shape Atlanta’s food scene.

For Osbey, whose work reflects a deep appreciation for Southern flavor while still embracing creativity and presentation, the festival is an opportunity to celebrate what makes Atlanta’s dining culture so distinctive. He will host The Southern Spread on Saturday, helping guide an experience that honors the comfort and familiarity of Southern cuisine while also showcasing the ways chefs continue to reinterpret it for a new generation.

The annual festival has become one of Atlanta’s signature culinary events, bringing together celebrated chefs, sommeliers, mixologists, restaurateurs and food lovers. This year, organizers are leaning even further into what makes Atlanta special with the theme “The City is the Story,” placing Atlanta’s neighborhoods, cultures and culinary influences at the center of the experience.

The festival’s signature Tasting Tents presented by Goya Foods return to The Home Depot Backyard with a different personality each day. Thursday begins with The Atlanta Standard, hosted by Monti Carlo, celebrating the restaurants and flavors that have helped define the city, while Friday’s Flavors of Atlanta, hosted by acclaimed chef and television personality Andrew Zimmern, expands the table to explore the global cultures and influences that have become essential parts of Atlanta cuisine.

Saturday brings the focus firmly back to the South with Osbey at the helm of The Southern Spread, an afternoon designed to celebrate Southern food not as something frozen in time, but as a cuisine that continues to grow and evolve. Guests can expect comforting classics alongside more contemporary interpretations, locally inspired ingredients, beverages and the communal atmosphere that has always been part of Southern hospitality.

That evolution is important because Atlanta’s culinary identity has never been limited to one definition of “Southern food.” The city’s best chefs increasingly understand that tradition and creativity do not have to compete, and that a recipe can honor the people who came before us while still becoming something new in the hands of the next generation. Osbey’s role in the festival feels especially fitting because his approach to food sits comfortably in that space between honoring the familiar and elevating the experience.

Sunday closes the festival with The Homecoming, hosted by chef and television personality Kardea Brown. The afternoon is designed to feel exactly like the name suggests, with good food, drinks, music and people gathering around a table before saying goodbye to the weekend.

The 2026 festival is also going beyond its familiar tasting tents with two new experiences: STACKED: The Burger Social, hosted by restaurateur Ford Fry, and Southern Fried: A Fried Chicken Affair, hosted by Kelli Potter. The fan-favorite Whiskey & Fire Atlanta also returns, pairing wood-fired dishes with whiskey tastings and live-fire cooking, adding another layer to a weekend that is already built around indulgence and discovery.

Collectively, the festival is expected to feature more than 200 chefs along with dozens of beverage and hospitality partners, turning the weekend into something much larger than a traditional food tasting. What makes an event like the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival interesting, however, is not simply the opportunity to eat very well for four days, but the way food becomes a vehicle for telling the story of a city.

Recipes hold memories, restaurants become gathering spaces, and certain dishes immediately remind us of Sunday dinners, grandparents, childhood neighborhoods or the first time somebody convinced us to taste something outside our comfort zone. Atlanta, perhaps more than most cities, has a culinary landscape that reflects its constant evolution, and that may be why “The City is the Story” feels particularly appropriate.

Atlanta is still unmistakably Southern, but today’s Atlanta is also international, sophisticated, experimental and deeply influenced by the Black culture that has helped make the city a global destination. Its food reflects all of those things at once, and with chefs like Shawn Osbey helping set the table, the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival offers a chance to experience that story one plate, one pour and one unforgettable bite at a time.