Editor’s Note: This story is an excerpt from WBUR’s weekly arts and culture newsletter, The ARTery. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.
In celebrating queer culture and history, the community’s culinary creations are often left out of the conversation. A weeklong celebration called Big Queer Food Fest is bridging that gap in Boston and bringing talented chefs to serve their cuisine.
Festival co-founders and television producers David Lewis and Chad Hahne met while producing “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and continued working together at Food Network. That’s when they realized there wasn’t a place to honor the queer culinary community’s work. They pointed to the extraordinary legacy of chefs like the late James Beard, whose foundation recognizes groundbreaking chefs and restaurants.
“ Even if you don’t know much about the food scene, some names that you may recognize, like James Beard, who is synonymous with the idea of American cuisine, himself was gay and really helped shape what the culinary scene looks in America,” said Lewis. “It was never talked about that he was gay, but our identities really form how we present ourselves and what we create in the kitchen and how we create hospitality scenes.”
Lewis and Hahne founded Big Queer Food Fest in 2023 to highlight culinary excellence in the LGBTQIA+ community. The festival held events in cities across the U.S. over the past two years, including Boston last year.
“The event here really just cemented this idea of bringing the full festival to life in Boston,” said Lewis. “We had such a great, supportive experience here. It’s just been such a wonderful community to be a part of, and I just feel like it’s something that the community needs here.”
This upcoming week marks the inaugural weeklong festival. Last year’s event involved a Grand Tasting of around 15 chefs serving eats at High Street Place. This year, there will be chef dinners and talks, parties and cocktail competitions around the city. The fest culminates with The Grand Tasting featuring bites prepared by more than 50 LGBTQIA+ chefs and samples from brewers, distillers and wine makers.
“We started with just wanting to do a couple of days of events, but as we started to do outreach and find venues to work with, we just had a lot of enthusiasm and support,” said Lewis. “And so the more we planned, the more there was that we thought we could fit in and try to give opportunities for people to be a part of it.”
Advertisement
The Grand Tasting has a capacity of 1,200 people each day. With the other events, Lewis and Hahne hope to bring in around 3,000-3,500 guests.
“ Something we want to do is amplify these really creative and talented voices, and in this particular instance, it’s really in the culinary purveyors and tastemaker space,” said Hahne. “So we’re really excited to bring this new type of festival and amplify a new demographic of our community.”
Tatiana Rosana is the regional culinary director for Hersha Hospitality, the executive chef at The Envoy in the Seaport and a two-time champion on Food Network’s “Chopped.” She met Hahne on “Guy’s Grocery Games” and was one of the featured chefs at the festival in Boston last year.
“ It was just so fun to be in a room full of queer chefs and chefs that have gone through similar things in life as I had and really just being able to celebrate what the queer food experience is was refreshing and obviously it was a huge party,” she said. “We had a blast, and I can’t wait to do it again.”
Rosana will return this year to serve shrimp ceviche with a mango aguachile at The Grand Tasting. She said she hasn’t had other chances to be around queer chefs in her career, so she is looking forward to meeting new people and being inspired by their creations.
“ I think the industry for so long has been straight, white males leading the charge, and when you look at food festivals or tastings that have a lot of chefs, and you look at the demographic, it is all very one note,” said Rosana. “Being able to change that up, being able to have diversity, being able to have the queer experience take up space in this market, I think is very important and something that I love being a part of.”
Hahne said building community within the queer space is the main focus of the festival. “Right now with what’s happening in our country, it’s really important to foster inclusive spaces for the LGBTQ+ community.”
Big Queer Food Fest will run from April 28-May 4. The Grand Tasting will take place at High Street Place, and other events will be scattered across the city throughout the week.