Savor Dallas Returns With Seminars From Matt McCallister, Graham Dodds, More

The annual food festival known as Savor Dallas kicks off next week with some new additions. The event was acquired by the Dallas Morning News's event company, CrowdSource, late last year, with promises to reinvent the festival, which is now in its eleventh year.

The most notable addition to the event is a series of events they're calling "Toast of the Town," which are seminars hosted by local chefs and food world folks — think Matt McCallister, Graham Dodds, Nick Badovinus, and Leslie Brenner — combined with dinners or happy hours, to be held March 18 through March 22.

Dodds and his sous chef, Nick Ocando, will host an “Appreciating Charcuterie” course at Hibiscus, while Badovinus will do "Killer Burgers" at Neighborhood Services. Chef Omar Flores and a somm will take folks to "Sherry School" with three courses of tapas paired with sherry at Casa Rubia, McCallister will instruct in "Aesthetics of the Plate" at FT33, and Brenner will host a wine-tasting class at the Meyerson Symphony Center. Other events include "Thinking and Eating Seasonally in Dallas" with Lark on the Park chefs Melody Bishop and Dennis Kelley, and a wood-fire hearth cooking seminar and dinner from Smoke's Tim Byres.

Ticket prices for these sorts of food festivals can get rather pricey (passes for the Austin Food & Wine Festival start out at $250, for example) but Savor Dallas is actually keeping things pretty affordable: Tickets for most of the seminars are priced at between $30 and $50, with a couple exceptions that top out at $110. Other events this year include the Grand Tasting main event at Fair Park, an outdoor brunch at Main Street Garden catered by Cafe Momentum, and a wine walk through the Arts District. Scope out the full listing of events and pricing info this way.