Food & Wine Classic in Aspen

The Food and Wine Classic in Aspen has been convening chefs, sommeliers, winemakers, and serious food enthusiasts in the Rocky Mountains every June since 1983. The 2026 edition — the 43rd, presented by American Express and Resy — runs June 19 through 21, bringing together more than 60 culinary professionals across over 80 events: cooking demonstrations, wine and spirits seminars, panel discussions, and five Grand Tasting Pavilion sessions where attendees sample from 150-plus winemakers, chefs, distillers, and hospitality groups. The festival begins at 8,000 feet in a town whose physical scale — one square mile of Victorian commercial architecture below Ajax Mountain’s ski terrain — concentrates the programming within walking distance of virtually every venue. Tickets start at $2,950 and sell out each year; book through classic.foodandwine.com.

The 2026 Chef and Beverage Roster

The confirmed 2026 lineup represents the depth of reach that the Classic has sustained across four decades. Bobby Flay leads “Steak-Out: Up Your Steak Game with Recipes and Techniques from Around the World.” Tyler Florence presents “The Way of Wagyu: Secrets of the World’s Most Coveted Steaks.” Maneet Chauhan, Tiffany Derry, Stephanie Izard, Ayesha Nurdjaja, Chris Shepherd, Brooke Williamson, Claudette Zepeda, and Andrew Zimmern round out the cooking demonstration roster. Shota Nakajima brings Japanese frying technique to “Gettin’ Crispy With It” and co-presents a noodle workshop with food content creator Owen Han. Nancy Silverton headlines a Best New Chefs program — her first at the Classic since being named a Food and Wine Best New Chef in 1990. Victoria James and Chef SK Kim of New York’s COQODAQ present “Bubble and Crunch: A Champagne and Fried Chicken Marriage Made in Heaven.” The beverage seminar program covers more than 50 sessions with wine educators including Ray Isle, Bobby Stuckey, Andy Chabot, and Mark Oldman. New for 2026, the Alpine Escapes program offers passholder registration for small-group outdoor activities — yoga, soundbaths, hiking, and meditation — set against Aspen’s mountain terrain between sessions. Every cooking demonstration in 2026 includes a tasting, a new addition to the format.

The Grand Tasting Pavilion

The Grand Tasting Pavilion on Wagner Park is the festival’s most democratic space — five sessions spread across Friday through Sunday where passholder ticket holders walk among tables representing 150-plus winemakers, distillers, chefs, and hospitality brands. The pavilion functions simultaneously as the festival’s most concentrated sampling opportunity and its primary gathering space, where the serendipitous conversation between a Burgundy producer, a Nashville chef, and a Dallas food writer produces the kind of professional cross-pollination that Food and Wine Editor in Chief Hunter Lewis describes as the Classic’s most enduring value. The 2026 Trade Program, hosted at the Aspen Art Museum and presented by American Express and Resy, runs concurrently for hospitality professionals.

Where to Eat in Aspen

Ajax Tavern (685 E. Durant Ave., open since 1993 at the base of Ajax Mountain) is the most consistently reliable outdoor lunch position in Aspen, with a terrace directly beneath the gondola and a menu running the house truffle frites, the seasonal risotto, and the Ajax burger with house-ground Colorado beef that have been the kitchen’s most-ordered preparations across multiple decades of mountain resort service. Element 47 at the Little Nell (675 E. Durant Ave., open since 1989 as the hotel’s dining room) represents the summit of Aspen’s formal dining category, with a wine program spanning 20,000 bottles and a kitchen that has held consistent regional recognition for its Colorado lamb preparations and the house-made pasta with seasonal foraged ingredients. For a post-session coffee and pastry, Paradise Bakery and Cafe (320 S. Galena St.) covers the morning croissant and espresso slot with the efficiency that a weekend of back-to-back seminars demands.

Points of Interest for Families

The Maroon Bells, accessible via a reservation-required shuttle from Aspen Highlands (approximately 10 miles southwest), present one of the most photographed mountain landscapes in the American West — the twin 14,000-foot peaks reflected in Maroon Lake constitute a physical encounter with alpine scenery that no photograph fully prepares visitors for. The shuttle system makes the Maroon Bells accessible to families without four-wheel-drive vehicles, and the lake trail is appropriate for children aged 5 and older. The Aspen Art Museum (590 N. Mill St., open since 1979, Shigeru Ban-designed building from 2014) provides a contemporary art context for the festival’s food and design-forward community, with free roof access offering one of the best views of Aspen’s surrounding mountain bowl for visitors who want an art encounter alongside the culinary programming.

Book Your Stay in the Roaring Fork Valley

Aspen’s lodging inventory during the Classic is among the most in-demand in Colorado — book a year in advance for in-town options. For a lake-adjacent stay that gives festival visitors a mountain water experience, search Lake.com for properties along Ruedi Reservoir (30 miles east via Highway 82) and the Roaring Fork Valley corridor, where vacation rental options provide mountain creek and lake access within an hour of the Aspen festival footprint.