Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival

The Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival is an annual event hosted by Caesars Entertainment during the last week of July. Lectures, cooking demonstrations and book signings highlight the four-day gathering held at Caesars four Atlantic City casinos. Each event features celebrity chefs and wine experts. Tickets are available for a fee at each venue.

The 2012 Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival gets kicked off Thursday July 26, bringing the largest food and wine festival on the East Coast to all four Caesars Entertainment Atlantic City casinos: Bally's, Caesars, Harrah's Resort, and the Showboat. Last year, many of the events were sold out. Early birds will guarantee themselves entry to the fun. Tickets are available online.

Harrah's Entertainment began the festival in 2007 with a simple Toast to the Coast wine party, but more than 2,600 wine and food enthusiasts took advantage of the resorts' two-days of fun and entertainment, convincing Harrah's that they should make the party a yearly celebration. Two years later the Food Network joined Harrah's and helped launch the Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival, bringing with it TV personalities and celebrity chefs.

To enhance the fun, local experts like Philly's own "Iron Chef" Jose Garces and South Jersey's beer expert, Gary Monterosso, hosted events. Other well-known personalities Like Tom Colicchio, Emeril Lagasse, Ingrid Hoffman and Guy Fieri presided over sold-out lectures and demonstrations.

The Festival begins each year with a Poolside Launch Party hosted by Andrew Zimmern. Zimmern is known for his hit series on the Travel Channel, Bizarre Foods. The party is $55 and held at the pool at Harrah's Resort from 8pm to 11pm.

Caesars Entertainment is pulling out all the stops this year with a total of 20 events and parties. TV personalities and experts scheduled to be on hand for the fun include Anne Burrell, Tom Colicchio, Michael Green, Robert Irvine, Gary Monterosso, Aaron Sanchez, Buddy Vlastro, Andrew Zimmern and Caesars Entertainments top in-house culinary experts.

To get you started, The Grand Market will host four sessions of gastronomic delights across more than 100 stations of food, wine, spirits and ales. If you prefer something more hearty, try the Define Cheese-steak or Blues, Brews & BBQ, and Drink My Beer party's.

If you come for the wine tasting and education seminars there are plenty to choose from, starting with Michael Green's hands-on Mia Seminar Series. However, the crowd favorite is likely to be The Blind Leading the Blind. This fun and tasty event is the ultimate mystery wine tasting party. Expect the $45 tickets to go quickly.

The party in July gives Caesars Entertainment a chance to highlight their new restaurants, but don't expect them to be overly crowded with all the wine and food events going on. Partnering with national restaurateur Stephen Hanson, Caesars Atlantic City resorts have opened four new restaurants including Atlantic Grill, Bill's Bar & Burger, Dos Caminos, and Sammy D's.

As a community leader, Caesars Entertainment has also partnered with The Community Food Bank of New Jersey to be the official charity sponsor of The Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival.

Caesars Entertainment Atlantic City Casinos

Caesars Entertainment includes four casino resort properties in Atlantic City. Each features restaurants, bars and lounges, hotel facilities, and of course, gaming. Once you learn to navigate the properties you will find more than enough to do!

Caesars casino has 145,000 square feet of casino space and offers the highest limits on table games: up to $50,000 at blackjack, $1,000 at roulette, $15,000 at baccarat and Pai Gow Poker, and $5,000 line bets with 5x's odds at craps. The property also has a 44-semi-private seat racebook.

Each Caesars Entertainment casino in Atlantic City also offers Keno, slots, video poker and standard poker. The poker rooms are now linked for huge bad beat jackpots. Harrah's offers Digital Deal $5 blackjack, and Harrah's, Bally's and the Showboat all have Rapid Roulette.