A $295 whiskey-paired dinner at Alila Marea Beach Resort will bring the Del Mar Wine & Food Festival to Coast Highway 101 for the first time on Thursday, Oct. 1.
The four-course dinner, running 6 to 9 p.m. at the resort's VAGA Restaurant & Bar at 2100 N. Coast Hwy 101, pairs dishes from two chefs with Stranahan's Colorado single malt whiskey. James Beard Award-winning chef Maneet Chauhan, a Food Network "Chopped" judge, will prepare Indian-fusion courses.
Alila Marea executive chef Tim Crittenden will contribute Southern California plates with global influences, according to the festival's event page. Stranahan's head blender Justin Aden rounds out the lineup.
The Encinitas stop is one of several satellite events as the fourth annual festival expands beyond its Del Mar home base. The festival runs Sept. 30 through Oct. 4, with its signature Grand Tasting at Surf Sports Park in Del Mar on Saturday, Oct. 3, and Sunday, Oct. 4. Other events land in La Jolla, Point Loma and Rancho Santa Fe, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
"The tentacles should grow," festival co-founder Troy Johnson told the Union-Tribune. "As you evolve, you want to include other venues and chefs and general managers. We're setting up new yards all around."
Johnson, publisher and chief content officer of San Diego Magazine, co-founded the festival alongside former NFL quarterback Drew Brees, soccer star Alex Morgan and surfer Rob Machado. Annual attendance now tops 10,000.
Crittenden leads VAGA's kitchen at the Encinitas resort. The restaurant is open to both hotel guests and the public. Chauhan, a two-time champion of Guy Fieri's Tournament of Champions, runs restaurants in Nashville and at Disney Springs in Orlando.
Over three years, the festival has raised more than $100,000 for Feeding San Diego, the county's only Feeding America partner food bank. The 2026 lineup features more than 100 chefs from California and Baja California, Mexico, and more than 150 wineries, breweries, distilleries and beverage makers at the Grand Tasting.
Tickets and the full schedule are available at delmar.wine.
