Leave it to the city’s most innovative restaurateurs to turn up the volume on one of its biggest—and wildest—cultural events of the year, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe. A coming-together of cutting-edge performing arts and equally inventive culinary offerings, the first Feastival is a clever ploy to put an avant-garde cornucopia of music, theater, dance and film in front of a more mainstream crowd by wooing—and wowing—them with the best cuisine the city has to offer.
The forward-thinking dream team behind this savvy endeavor includes three of the city’s brightest culinary luminaries: Audrey Claire Taichman, Michael Solomonov and Stephen Starr.
Well known in and around the city, Taichman grew up in Narberth, which is also the home of Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe producing director Nick Stuccio.
On Aug. 16, a lucky roster of foodies, artists, press and arts supporters will be treated to a grand, see-and-be-seen cocktail party at Twenty Manning Grill in honor of Feastival’s sponsors, but the main attraction isn’t until Sept. 15.
Event designer-about-town Liz Trasmundi and her creative team have grand plans to magically transform a warehouse located at Fifth and Fairmount in Northern Liberties. The usual suspects—Jose Garces, Georges Perrier, Michael Schulson, Ellen Yin, Marc Vetri—have already signed on.
Along with an insane collection of vibrant flavors and textures, Feastival hopes to further entice guests with silent and live auctions. Proceeds benefit the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe, of course.
Participating restaurants include Amis, Audrey Claire, Bar Ferdinand, Buddakan, Capogiro, The Continental, D’Angelo’s, El Rey, Fork, FruitFlowers, Le Bec-Fin, Garces Trading Company, La Colombe, Lacroix, Le Castagne, Matyson, Melagrano, Metropolitan Bakery, MidAtlantic, Modo Mio, Nectar, Noble, Osteria, Parc, Percy Street Barbecue, Pizzeria Stella, Pod, Pumpkin, R2L, Ristorante Panorama, Rouge, Sampan, Supper, Sweet Freedom Bakery, Twenty Manning Grill, Union Trust, Vetri, Xochitl, Zahav and Zama.
For more information and tickets, visit livearts-fringe.org/feastival.
