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| - My second year of Devour in the books. My stomach is ready to pop & I've napped more in the last two days than I can ever remember. This also marks Devour's first year at a new venue. Devour was stationed for years at the Phoenix Art Museum. I was among those sad to see the event move away from the Art Museum (partly because it was walking distance to my apartment, but also) because the venue was both aesthetically pleasing & contained to a relatively small intimate space. That said, I agree with Kimber Lanning that Devour had outgrown the Art Museum. The event needed a bigger space to accommodate more vendors, more foodie patrons, & more space for people to move around in general. On paper, the Desert Botanical Gardens make a lot of sense as a new venue. Its more spread out, has more parking, & the gardens themselves are one of Phoenix's most iconic venues. So how did year one at the Gardens go?
I should note that like last year I went both Saturday & Sunday. Just as with last year, Saturday & Sunday have a completely different lineup of food vendors (though the beer, wine, and spirits vendors are largely the same both days). Also just as with last year, the best day in terms of the quality & selection of foods is Sunday. Don't get me wrong, Saturday has a great selection too, but the quality of Sunday's food is best. If you can only go one day during the weekend, go on Sunday. And as with last year, each restaurant was offering anywhere from 1 to 4 different items to taste from. And the food by in large is still awesome with each restaurant giving you taster sized bites in an effort to showcase what makes them great. For the record, my three favorite dishes this year (in order) were: 1) Gallo Blanco's pancake dessert taco, 2) Clever Koi's mango duck in banana leaf and 3) Worth Takeaway's pork sandwich.
Let's point out some of the differences this year. For starters, there were three levels of admission. The cheapest (and the one I got) was the Taster admission for $115 per person per day. The second level was the Conoisseiur admission which gets you into some exclusive food and beverage areas. And the top level is the VIP admission. Both the Conoisseiur and VIP admissions get you in an hour earlier than the Taster admission folks, but the VIP admission gets you anywhere at the event at any time. I actually went with a couple that had VIP passes this go around. While they certainly were able to sample items I didn't have access to, it seemed like the biggest benefit for those upper level admissions was an abundance of seating and tables for those folks. The biggest difference however was the setup at the Gardens. Whereas the Art Museum setup relegated the event to an enclosed courtyard & a couple of breakout rooms on the perimeter, Devour (mostly) made use of the entire Gardens park. There were a total of ten separate zones doling out different items, but each zone had at least a few food vendors.
So how did it go? Well, mixed. I've seen some of the negative Yelp reviews from some of this year's Devour patrons. While I don't agree with all of their criticisms, I think some of their critiques have a point. Some people didn't like having to walk so much versus years past so that'll just take getting used to. But I will say that some of the criticisms about the overcrowding in certain zones has merit. Zone 2 at the Boppart Courtyard was too packed in. Which is a shame because that also featured some of the state's most popular restaurants. I realize keeping the lines moving is partly the responsibility of the vendors themselves, but next year they should cut the number of vendor booths in half at that location to leave more room to maneuver. Additionally, there were open & available spaces at the Gardens that were largely unused. The northwest quadrant in particular got no usage. I understand some of the park contains sensitive horticultural areas but I saw plenty of dirt areas where booths could've easily been stationed. Bottomline, spread the vendors more evenly throughout the park. Lastly, trim down the number of VIP/Conoisseiur spots. I get that Devour is an expensive event to put on & they need to make money, but the restricted access areas were almost abandoned for much of the day both days. I'd recommend having just one VIP area & make the rest available to everyone next year.
All that said, I still highly recommend this event to anyone who loves great food, great drinks, a beautiful backdrop, & supporting local businesses. The new location will have some kinks to work out, but so did the Art Museum location years ago. I trust Kimber & the Local First AZ crew to get this right going forward. This year wasn't quite as magical for me as when it was at the Art Museum in 2017, but Devour is still the ultimate bucket list culinary event for food lovers here in AZ or visiting from out of state. Cheers!
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