Carmel-by-the-Sea Culinary Week Revs Up Experience in Year 5

May 13, 2025—There are clear indicators Carmel-by-the-Sea Culinary Week is looking to make a leap. 

Consider olive trees from Griggs Nursery lining a 120-foot banquet table in the middle of Dolores Avenue for a La Dolce Vita dinner.

Or fire breathers, fire dancers, violinists with instruments on fire, molten glass blowing with ice molds, and sculpted ice luge liquors, all gathered in La Playa Hotel’s gardens for a “fire and ice” Soirée by the Sea.

Amy Herzog, executive director at event organizer Visit Carmel, surveys the strongest catalog of programming in the festival’s half decade and sums up the shift.

“One of the main goals for our fifth year is to create more of a festival-type feel,” she says. “We want to take the restaurant community and dive into the most whimsical parts of our village’s artistic heritage—in a way, restaurateurs are our new Bohemians.” 

Many elements will remain, notably 25+ restaurants doing special offers, prix-fixe menus, chef-led demos, and private dinners; an evolved Pub Crawl; opening night at Carmel Plaza; and a popular Farmers Market Chef Showdown, back for year two. 

But those will get glow-ups too.

The “Party in the Plaza” on May 30, for instance, will again unlock a deep roster of restaurant and winery participants. [To wit (deep breath): Alvarado Street Brewery, Carmel’s Hidden Gem, Dutch Door, Flaherty’s Seafood Grill & Oyster Bar, Il Fornaio, Jeju Kitchen, Links Club, Nicolás Cocina De Herencia, Rise + Roam, Seventh & Dolores, Stationæry, The Cheese Shop, The Grill on Ocean Avenue, Toro Sushi, Vino Botana, Chalone Winery, Corral Wine Company, De Tierra Vineyards, Fog’s End Distillery, Folktale Winery, I. Brand & Family, Rustique Winery, Scheid Vineyards, Shale Canyon, Silvestri Vineyards, Talbott Vineyards, Tira Nanza Wines, VIN Bar, and Wrath Winery.]

But it will also layer the welcoming outdoor setting with more involved floral decor to go with mid-event surprises like street performers, live musicians and atypical artists—that will feel, per Herzog, “part pop-up, part flash-mob.” 

That tasting joins a collection of five “village-wide” events designed by Good Roots Events, the team behind Carmel Farmers Market and Hacienda in Carmel Valley, led by Nile Estep.

“I want guests to feel immersed in an experience,” he says, “like you traveled to a different place.”

The larger-format events include:

1) Boho Bites & Beats, an internationally-themed street celebration on Dolores north of Ocean, alive with art galleries, wine/sake/cocktail tastings, buskers, worldly restaurant booths (like Yafa, Cultura and Toro Sushi), and Patricia Qualls leading a community mural project;

2) La Dolce Vita down Dolores, complete with that olive tree-and-harvest-table setup, a “parade of pastas,” afogato bar, Italian band, roaming accordion player, Parmesan wheel tasting, a bunch of wineries and menu participants like Seventh & Dolores, Cafè dal Mare, Cantinetta Luca, Casanova, Fool Hardy, Il Fornaio, La Dolce Vita, Little Napoli, Il Tegamino, OTTO’s Bread and Radici Market.

Another big happening will sync with the Thursday Carmel market, and represent Estep’s second time organizing CCW’s Culinary Showdown.

The lineup for that event speaks to intensified dynamism coursing through the CCW grid of activities.

At the showdown Carmel’s Hidden Gem, Casanova, The Pocket, and Vesuvio will all compete to produce the best farmers market dish roasted over open flames on Santa Maria-style grills—with an audience vote on the winner—to pair with tasting stations, chef and restaurateur Q&As, an interactive culinary quiz with prizes, a mocktail bar by Links Club, live music from Ann Sibley, live paintings, and double live demos by Edible fave and best-selling cookbook author Caroline Chambers and multidimensional creative force Chef Todd Fisher, all set against the backdrop of Devendorf Park’s glorious oaks and grass, and the market itself. 

The anticipation is audible in the voice of Jeff Burghardt, Visit Carmel’s marketing director. 

“Good Roots and their creativity is way beyond what we can consider,” he says. “Some of custom-made things they’re putting together—whole sets, really—combined with music and artists, are going to create some incredible moments.” 

Over at the Soirée by the Sea, all the experiential fire play could get overshadowed by the seafood from a stars-by-the-sea slate led by Aubergine, Chez Noir, Foray and Stationæry, and buttressed by Jeju Kitchen, Alvarado Street Brewery and Bud’s at La Playa Hotel.

After looking the collective assemblage of events over, I shared my immediate impression with Estep out loud, namely “OK, Culinary Week, now we are cooking!” 

He didn’t skip a beat: “Yes!” he shouted. “And we’re playing with fire!”

More at Carmel-by-the-Sea Culinary Week’s website.