Part food festival, part party, part homecoming — Charlotte’s inaugural BayHaven Food and Wine Festival was a little bit of everything wrapped up in a whole lot of Black excellence. The only food festival of its kind in North Carolina, and one of the few that celebrate the Black food diaspora in America, BayHaven drew attendees from across the country for three days of events at Charlotte’s Camp North End development.

The festival is the brainchild of Subrina and Gregory “Greg” Collier, the couple behind Charlotte restaurant Leah & Louise, and was designed to showcase Black chefs, winemakers, mixologists, artists, and musicians in a format that is too often dominated by white talent. The weekend flowed from large gatherings like Friday’s Chuckwagon Carnival and the signature Cotton Club Tasting Tent on Saturday to plated evening dinners, cooking classes, and more.

“The fellowship we had with the culinary community this weekend, I can't even put into words,” says Subrina Collier. “At times this weekend, I didn't know how we would pull certain things off, but everybody stepped up and pulled from within and made this thang happen. Even though it was a Black food and wine festival, everybody came and put hands, love, and support into this for Greg and me because it's important to keep that message alive.”

Friday’s Black Stork Dinner honored Josephine Baker and the difficulties she faced as a Black woman trying to dine at Manhattan’s famed Stork Club on October 16, 1951. On Saturday evening, guests were treated to an eight-course Harlem Nights-themed dinner, modeled after the 1980s classic film of the same name.

Food writer and TikTok influencer Anela Malik traveled from her home in Northwest Arkansas to attend the festival. “The best part of the experience was seeing the range of talent present,” she says. “There were so many talented female food and wine professionals, a wide variety of wine and liquor brands, and [the] dishes represented so many influences, techniques, and cuisines.”

The signature Cotton Club Tasting Tent event on Saturday featured dozens of Black chefs, mixologists, and winemakers and was the weekend's highlight. Guests sampled creative dishes and innovative cocktails while swaying to a DJ-set of classic R&B and hip hop. At one point in the afternoon, a steel drum player knocked out a wildly popular set of cover songs.

Standout dishes at the Cotton Club event included a berbere-spiced lamb meatball with harissa tomato sauce, feta, sumac red onions, and spiced pita chips from Houston’s A Ma Maniére, a Honduran coconut shrimp dish with sweet potato grits from caterer and personal chef Reyaña Radcliff of Your Braisen Chef, LLC, and deviled oysters on the half shell from Daryl Cooper and Oscar Johnson of Jimmy Pearls in Charlotte.

A berbere-spiced lamb meatball with harissa tomato sauce from Houston’s A Ma Maniére was among the standout dishes at BayHaven's Cotton Club event (Harper Hornaday)

Those looking for a drink or two were well served with options like wine from McBride Sisters Wine, cocktails like Whiskey and Rosemary’s “Summer’s Gone” (made with I.W. Harper bourbon, papaya, spiced banana syrup, persimmons, lemon, an herbal blend, and habanero pepper), and beer from Charlotte’s Free Range Brewing.

Shaking up Whiskey and Rosemary's Summer's Gone cocktail at the BayHaven Food & Wine Festival (Harper Hornaday)

“Though I didn't have a bad bite all weekend,” Malik recalls, “Tonya Thomas's burnt miso pound cake with roasted apple compote, apple peel chips, and apple cider caramel really stands out in my memory.

“We went back for seconds on that one! It had just the right balance of sweet with a hint of salt, and I loved seeing apples being used in a variety of ways on one dish.”

Other events over the weekend included a cooking class with Chef Keith Rhodes of Wilmington, NC, seafood restaurant Catch (among other ventures), a vegan cooking class with Adjoa Courtney, better known as Chef Joya, and the Black TriAngle Art Summit that combined music, painting, and food for an immersive culinary experience.

Keith Rhodes of Wilmington's Catch led one of the weekend's lineup of cooking classes (Rachel Sutherland Communications)

BayHaven ended the weekend with a Sunday Jazz Brunch followed by an evening of barbecue and drinks, where guests mingled with the chefs, and the Colliers finally got to breathe.

“Standing next to my culinary mentors, people who consider me their culinary mentors, and my actual parents, was surreal,” says Collier. “I'm still processing how otherworldly everything felt.”

For its first year, BayHaven Food & Wine Festival pulled out all the stops, and the celebration of Black food, art, music, and entrepreneurship was a truly magical experience. The Colliers already have plans for a repeat next year (around the same time), and given that the entire weekend of events sold out for the festival’s inaugural run, hungry fans might want to go ahead and mark their calendars now.