Chef Vincent Tropepe to hold court at Hudson Valley Wine & Food Fest

The 20th Hudson Valley Wine & Food Fest, happening on September 11 and 12 at the venerable Dutchess County Fairgrounds, is going to be fairly brimming with culinary polymaths. Take Vincent Tropepe, for instance. This guy is a dynamo on multiple fronts: he’s a celebrated chef and culinary personality, an author of cookbooks and non-fiction polemics, a sought-after public speaker, and a consultant to fine restaurants. He’s a fierce advocate for small business, as evidenced by his most recent recent treatise, “SLAUGHTERED: How Inconsistent Lockdowns Collapsed the Hospitality Industry During COVID-19.”

Tropepe’s first professional gig was at the Essex House in NYC, working directly under Chef Alain Ducasse. He subsequently embarked upon a stellar career at a who’s who of top restaurants, gaining with each assignment an increasing knowledge of ethnic cuisines and the usage of ingredients in fine cooking. While working in New York at The Rainbow Room, Chanterelle, The 21 Club, One If By Land, Two If By Sea, and Mr. K’s, and later at Jennifer Lopez’s famed Madre’s out in Pasadena, California, Tropepe found himself cooking for an increasing number of famous individuals: Luciano Pavarotti, Rudy Giuliani, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Regis Philbin, Michael Jackson, Joan Rivers and Robin Williams. He fed four U.S. Presidents: George W. Bush and Barack Obama, both while in office, and Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton in their retirements. He has cooked aboard Air Force One 14 times for Presidential domestic flights.

Tropepe’s “In My Whites: A Matter of Culinary Perspective” was a well-received cookbook and culinary memoir that warranted a 17-week book tour across U.S. in 2016. In “SLAUGHTERED,” he pries the lid off of the impact of inconsistent lockdowns that collapsed the hospitality industry during COVID-19, and the leaders that put them in place. In addition to all of the above, Tropepe is a fundraising machine, having raised more than $6 million for various charities he believes in through charitable dinners, appearances and speaking engagements.

The 20th Hudson Valley Wine & Food Fest is glad to have him, holding court as one of its matchless lineup of celebrity chef demonstrators. The event takes place at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds on Saturday and Sunday, September 11 and 12, 2021. For more information, or to contact the festival team or subscribe to the festival mailing list, go here.