Photo Credit: Chow Chow Festival
Sweet aromas fill the air and the city is a buzz — the Chow Chow Asheville festival is here!
In 2019, the Chow Chow festival got its start to honor the area’s talent and celebrate its rich eclectic food scene. After missing the festival in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are excited to be a part of it again.
How is Chow Chow Asheville Different This Year?
This year, the festival has changed a bit. Instead of being a weekend-long event, Asheville is hosting a series of events to celebrate the unique foodways of the Southern Appalachian region. It’s an experience that showcases the creativity and beauty of the area by combining recognized chefs with multi-generation farmers and millers, bakers, artists and brewers. Through educational culinary experiences, you’ll see first hand what makes our Blue Ridge Mountains the tasty and beautiful place we cherish.
Our First Chow Chow Asheville Experience
Photo Credit: Red Truck Bakery
If you’ve stayed at our inn, you know that good food is a staple to our bed and breakfast experience. So when we heard about the Chow Chow festival in 2019, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to join in.
One event in particular caught our interest and that was the “Rolling in the Biscuit Dough Workshop,” a collaborative event with Red Truck Bakery and Biscuit Head. We absolutely loved this experience! If you’ve stayed at our Inn — or have heard about Shawnie’s amazing cooking skills — you know breakfast time is near and dear to our hearts. We’re always looking for new ways to elevate our homemade breakfasts and help better serve our guests, which made this event a must-do in our book. We got to take a deep dive into the ins and outs of biscuit making alongside the expert biscuit slingers at Red Truck Bakery and Biscuit Head.
We also participated in another event that weekend where we had the opportunity to taste different foods, beer, and wine. We enjoyed eclectic flavors from the masterminds at Curate and other culinary creative restaurants while we listened to the chefs talk about each of their foods, the culture behind them, and their cooking processes.
In our opinion, the best part about the Chow Chow festival is the personal, small group setting you get. It gives you the opportunity to learn from the chefs and better understand how the restaurants in the area engage with farm fresh, locally grown food. After all, how often do you get to be in a hands-on setting with award-winning chefs? It’s a really special experience that we would recommend to anyone.
If you’re coming to stay with us here at the Inn on Montford, we highly encourage you to attend at least one event while you’re planning your visit to Asheville. If you love food, culture, and farm to table freshness, this is something you won’t want to miss.
Chow Chow Festival 2021
The Chow Chow festival is taking place throughout the summer and ends with the final series event on September 26. You can see the full list of events here.