A new foodie festival in Dallas made its debut: It was the Shef Food + Wine Festival, launched by Chef Tiffany Derry and Tom Foley, who own DFW restaurants Roots Chicken Shack and Radici Wood-Fired Grill, and it turned the Epic Central in Grand Prairie into a celebrity chef affair.

Derry drafted some of her TV chef friends to come in from out of town including fellow Top Chef contestants Michael Voltaggio, Carla Hall, and more, for the 3-day event from November 8-10 with panels, tastings, and more tastings.

Perhaps in an even more impressive feat, she lured Dallasites into leaving Dallas for faraway ports like Grand Prairie and Farmers Branch — home of Radici, her Italian restaurant, where she hosted a sold-out dinner on Friday night featured a multi-course tasting menu prepared by Derry with Michael Voltaggio, Suchanan Aksornnan, and Dawn Burrell, plus wine pairings from McBride Sisters Winery, the largest Black-owned wine company in the U.S.

Tiffany Derry and guests at the Shef Food + Wine Festival.Mia Valdez

There was also a pickleball tournament — coincidentally the same weekend that the Major League Pickleball world championship was culminating at Brookhaven Country Club in Dallas. But this tournament was played by chefs including Derry, Voltaggio, Burrell, Arnold Mynt, Tim Hollingsworth, and Silvia Barban.

A Grand Tasting on Sunday featured bites from chefs from around the country including the above names along with Kwame Onwuachi, Fitzgerald Dodd, Kelsey Barnard-Clark, Kevin Bludso, and Marcus Davis.

Organizer estimated the total attendance for the event at 1,000 people, including the dinner at Radici which drew approximately 80 diners.

The weekend ended with a performance by chef and personality Carla Hall of excerpts from her One Woman Show — a comedic take on her life as a chef and TV personality.

T2D also announced its first Roots Chicken Shack franchisees: Corey Epperson and Marian Fielding, who will open their first location in Addison next year, and Robert and Tamika Barkers, who are scouting locations in North Texas for their first location.