Regions: Florida

We love this slice of paradise just outside of the bustle of Miami. Once an abandoned avocado grove, Paradise Farms is now a vibrant home to a variety of carefully tended specialty greens, medicinal herbs, tropical fruit and mushrooms. Their goal is to work in harmony with nature to produce the most nutrient dense and nourishing harvest possible through organic, regenerative practices. Chef Andrew Ayala from Michelin-starred Le Jardinier will be in the field kitchen showing off his seasonally-inspired take on classic French cuisine. Topped with Paradise’s edible flowers and microgreens, his plates are sure to be as beautiful as the meticulously curated grounds on which they’ll be served.

Venture just down the road from the vintage glamor of Palm Beach and become surrounded by the rich green of tropical fruit orchards and the gentle clucking sound of contented chickens at Holman’s Harvest. Marty and Liza Holman started farming by growing salad greens in an effort to provide healthy food for their family and friends. Over the past ten years, they’ve expanded their permaculture practices to include a variety of vegetables and animals to ensure that they not only provide healthy food to their community, but that they take care of the delicate soil ecosystems that help it grow. We’ll set the table in one of their colorful lettuce beds (or maybe in the shade of the tropical fruit trees) to enjoy a meal with Jason Weiner from Almond. Jason is Outstanding’s most veteran guest chef, and always manages to surprise and impress us.

On Anna Maria Island, sugar-white sand and cerulean waters stretch for miles. The charming towns are dotted with fishing piers, quaint family-owned shops and cafes mixed in with colorful beach cottages. While we’ve visited the island for years, we’re setting the table somewhere a little bit different this time, on the southernmost stretch of these legendary beaches. Dip your toes in the sand and watch the sunset over the Gulf while we enjoy the freshest catch from fisherman Brian Lacey, expertly prepared by Ed Chiles and the team from Beach House. They’re a local favorite for seafood, shellfish and sustainable practices. Chiles Hospitality even owns and runs their own farm, Gamble Creek, to grow organic produce and turn restaurant waste into compost to benefit both the soil and local watershed. They always serve a celebration of Florida’s bounty fitting the beauty of Anna Maria’s beaches.

After a year away, we’re so excited to return to Lake Meadow Naturals! Farmer Dale Volkert, perennially dressed in a pair of Carhartt overalls, knows more about chicken eggs than any one person should and is always happy to share his knowledge with us. We’ve invited Bruno Fonseca back to the field kitchen to craft a meal focused on local Florida ingredients. At Foreigner Restaurant, Chef Bruno crafts a tasting menu experience each week highlighting the best of the season, inspired by his multi-cultural heritage. He’s no stranger to improvisation and inspiration, and we can’t wait to see what he creates for us.

Rex Clonts is a fifth-generation farmer who grew up here in Oviedo, a charming town populated by chickens that freely roam the streets. Rex’s grand-dad was the original Big Daddy, who moved his young family to central Florida in 1923 and started out with a plot of celery planted in the rich Black Hammock soil of Seminole County. Today Rex and his wife Denise still grow celery for their neighbors, selling it along with a vast variety of other vegetable crops, from choi sum to purple-topped turnips. Committed to organic agriculture, BigDaddy’s re-certifies their farm every year and regularly tests the soil to monitor fertility, using carefully selected cover crops and no-till farming to rebuild the fields as a vital living ecosystem. Summer is downtime for Florida farmers, but in January, the place will be bustling with energy, and burgeoning fields will give Chef Bruno plenty to work with. Brazilian-born Bruno has lots of experience with improvising, having worked in high-end spots like Normans, taught at Le Cordon Bleu, operated a food truck and captivated central Florida tastebuds with his roving, after-hours Foreigner Experience pop-ups. Now he’s settled into his own brick-and-mortar place, and he’ll bring his omakase menu to BigDaddy’s field.

Chris Kenrick’s six-acre farm in Tampa is beaming with life and overflowing with all sorts of organically grown vegetables and herbs. It’s also home to the area’s oldest-running CSA program and farmer’s market, providing hundreds of Tampa Bay residents with fresh-as-it-gets produce year-round. Chris is a champion of local foodsheds and sustainable agriculture and believes in growing community from the ground up. His community-driven ethos includes farmer apprenticeship programs, hands-on educational workshops, farm tours and events for both children and adults. We’ll celebrate this inspiring work with a feast in their beautiful fields along Sweetwater Creek. Guest chef Eric McHugh spent more than twenty years in Tampa Bay area restaurants, including Hew Parlor at The Fenway Hotel, before helming the pans at Hotel Haya’s famed Flor Fina. He’ll bring us a taste of the restaurant’s unique menu inspired by the Cuban and Latin roots of Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood. Think coconut clam chowder, calamansi ceviche and wood-fired brick chicken with plantains.

This 7-mile stretch of white sand beaches and turquoise waters is spectacularly beautiful and beaming with Old Florida charm. You’ll feel your shoulders relax the moment you arrive here, and once you dig your toes into the silky sand, you may never want to leave. The island’s laid-back lifestyle is one of the reasons we keep coming back. The other is the plethora of fresh seafood and locally grown produce we’re lucky to feast on at the table. And then there’s the views of swimming dolphins and manatees paired with glorious sunsets over the Gulf. This year we are thrilled to welcome Ed Chiles—owner of the Anna Maria restaurant, Sandbar—and his team to the beach kitchen for the third time. Ed’s restaurant Sandbar is known for its seasonal seafood-centric menu sourced from nearby waters and nearby Florida farms. He’ll be joined by four other star chefs from the Chiles Group including Ted Louloudes & Helena Vavrikova of Anna Maria Bake House, Thomas Villetto of Beach House Waterfront Restaurant, and Aaron Kulzer of Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant. Host fisherman Brian Lacey is a good friend of the Chiles restaurant group, supplying them with everything from stone crab to Spanish mackerel to mullet. And farmers Zack Rasmussen & Natasha Ahuja of Gamble Creek Farms provide the vegetables. The three of them will join us at the table to tell us the story of what’s on our plates, while we toast to their hard work with a few glasses of crisp wine on the beach.

An abundance of organic salad greens, tropical fruit trees and pastured hens pecking through lush green fields. This family-run farm provides ample places to dine and an inspiring story to boot. Farmers Marty and Liza Holman use permaculture practices to keep their soil healthy, their crops nutritious, and their ecosystem thriving—which means farming without synthetic herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers, and using permanent bed systems to protect the delicate fungal networks and root systems underground. We’ll learn all about their impressive farming system on the farm tour before sitting down at the long table for a delectable four-course feast from guest chef Jason Weiner. This will be our 16th (!) event with Jason, an OITF celebrity known for his hearty seasonal meals and friendly demeanor in the field kitchen. 

In 2020, he opened a Palm Beach outpost of his highly acclaimed New York restaurant Almond, quickly linking up with local farmers like the Holmans. Jason joined us at the Holmans’ last winter and cooked up a particularly delicious dessert with Liza and Marty’s star fruit, hibiscus and pink peppercorns. We can’t wait to see what he does for his sweet 16th! 

This event marks ten years of long table dinners at this friendly farm of pastured laying hens. After COVID kept us away last year, it’s about time we check in on our old farmer friends Dale and Robert — and see how “the girls” are doing too. Dale and Robert have much to teach about raising pastured birds, and we look forward to learning more from them each time we visit. This year, there’s been talk of setting the table in their newly planted orange grove — which in January, should be exploding with fragrant blossoms and ripe fruit. Guest chefs Alexia & Rhys Gawlak have been a part of the Orlando food scene for over twenty years and are known for seasonal, scratch-made cuisine sourced from local farms. They’ll cook up quite the scrumptious feast in the field kitchen.

This 85-acre organic farm in South Florida grows a huge variety of greens, roots, shoots, fruiting vegetables, flowers and herbs. That’s a lot of pretty places to choose from when it comes to setting the table, and a lot of delectable edibles for guest chef Jeanie Roland to incorporate into the menu. Chef Jeanie has quite the culinary chops, including seven James Beard nominations, and The Perfect Caper is a beloved Gulf Coast institution. We are very excited to see what she whips up in the field kitchen. Before we feast, we’ll enjoy an educational farm tour from farmers Eva and Chris Worden. They hold PhDs in Ecosystem Management and Crop Science (respectively) and are recognized as organic farming experts by the Organic Trade Association and the USDA. It’s our third event with Worden Farm and each time we visit, they have a few new things to teach us on the tour.