Sun Wine & Food Fest at Mohegan Sun is your chance to sip and sample your way through endless vintages and signature dishes, incredible showcases and tastings during a four-day affair across the Uncas Ballroom, Earth Expo & Convention Center, and restaurants across the property. This is one of our favorite annual events to attend as there are so many amazing and talented chefs in one spot! 

We headed up to Mohegan on Friday afternoon, checked into our room in the Sky Hotel, then went straight to Beam & Burgers presented by Beam Suntory, Inc.. We met Mike Puma aka Gotham Burger Social Club at Greenwich Wine and Food several years ago while admiring the light he was using to photograph culinary items at the event. It was great to see him again this year and enjoy his delicious award winning Gotham Smash, the Bourbon BBQ Burger and sliced New York Valley Wagyu Steak with Chimichurri. Chef Chad Rosenthal was on the knife slicing Saint Louis Cut, Pork Spare Ribs Smoked with White Oak, Dry Rubbed and served with The Lucky Well House BBQ Sauce on the side. We enjoyed the live entertainment as well as the very talented cigar rollers from Connecticut Cigar Company.

After that, we headed to the Grand Tasting Preview where we enjoyed interactive games, tons of free samples including food, chocolate, and lots of different types of alcohol. We saw vendors from previous years like the amazing Guinness Nitro Cold Brew Coffee Stout that we totally had forgotten about and our long time buds (like 30+ years) from Highland Imports. We sampled amazing espresso martinis from The Cocktail Chemist, got some beef jerky from Beef Octane that was a little hotter than we expected, then went and hung out with the new Two Roads Social Media Director, Jess at her booth!

After the Grand Tasting Preview, we swung over to Novelle for Toast with the Host with Loverboy founders Kyle Cooke and Amanda Batula who are stars of Bravo’s Summer House. We really enjoyed the Passion Fruit Guava flavor and were excited to discover they carry these at Total Wine.

Saturday, we found ourselves back at the Grand Tasting and we had the opportunity to sample over 1,000 varieties of wine, beer, and spirits. This year, they also included lots of small bites within the ticket price (with larger offerings for purchase) from some of the region’s most highly rated restaurants, food trucks and select bites from elite chefs. We sat down to watch cooking demos at the main culinary stages, although we did miss the caviar bumps we took with Todd English last year.

That evening, we found ourselves at the best event of the weekend – the Celebrity Chef Dine Around. This event is packed with the best of the best and attended by those who appreciate talent. We were amazed at the plating, effort, and love that was put into each of these tiny plates. We chatted with chefs from previous years as well as some we know from “the 203” about their upcoming plans and direction. We were bummed to hear that a major project one chef was working on isn’t going to happen as we were really excited, but we know we will see him come up with another plan for something interesting soon.

One of the chefs clued us into an after-gathering, so we headed to one of the bars on the property after to catch up on more of the latest news. It was a long day and we finally decided to call it quits, only to run into one of the chefs with a tray full of Johnny Rockets in the elevator.

Sunday morning obviously called for Bloodys & Brunch with Buddy. That Cake Boss is always a character and entertaining to watch. It was really neat to see him in his shop shooting content throughout the weekend as well.

We had a blast at Sun Wine & Food Fest at Mohegan Sun as always and can’t wait to see what they have in store for us next year! Make sure you’re following Mohegan Sun on both Instagram & Facebook to stay up with the latest.