Bobby Flay receives SOBEWFF’s seventeenth tribute

Bobby Flay and Treasury Wine Estates executive Michael Clarke were honored at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival’s February 24 tribute event. The Loews Miami Beach Hotel hosted the evening, with radio personality Elvis Duran as master of ceremonies.

This year’s program used a walk-around format, giving the tribute a different rhythm from a conventional seated dinner. Guests could encounter culinary offerings as a sequence of individual stops, a structure that fits a festival built around variety and conversation.

Flay’s recognition also brought the relationship between restaurant work and food television into focus. A chef’s public identity can develop through both, reaching audiences who may never visit the same dining room. The tribute placed that wider influence within the festival’s record of hospitality leaders, while the participating chefs and wines supplied the immediate experience around which the evening was organized.