Drink Las Vegas debuts September 24–27, 2026 across MGM Resorts. Jean-Georges, Wolfgang Puck, Roy Choi and more. Tickets on sale now at drinklasvegas.com.
Drink Las Vegas, the inaugural festival from MGM Resorts, arrives this September with a roster that reads like a best-of list for American culinary and cocktail culture.
For decades, Las Vegas has sold itself on spectacle — the shows, the casinos, the sheer scale of everything. The food and beverage scene has always been exceptional in pockets, but the city’s reputation as a serious culinary destination has historically lived in the shadow of the main event. That framing is shifting, and MGM Resorts is making the shift official.
Drink Las Vegas, a new four-day experiential festival produced by MGM Resorts International and event agency a21, debuts September 24–27, 2026, across more than 30 venues spanning ARIA, Bellagio, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, and Park MGM. It is, by design, an argument — a concentrated demonstration that Las Vegas now belongs in the same conversation as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco when it comes to food and drink at the highest level.
The inaugural lineup is hard to dismiss.
The Talent
The culinary roster pulls from nearly every tier of American restaurant culture. Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Wolfgang Puck, and Masaharu Morimoto represent the established guard — chefs whose names have defined fine dining for thirty-plus years. Tom Colicchio, Roy Choi, and Michael Mina bring both critical credibility and broad cultural recognition.
A younger cohort rounds out the programming: Paul Carmichael, whose Kabawa was named the number one restaurant in New York City’s East Village by the New York Times; Tiffany Derry, Top Chef alumna and MasterChef judge; and Maneet Chauhan, a James Beard Award winner for Best Chef Southeast.
The beverage programming is equally substantive.
Master Sommeliers Michaël Engelmann, Jason Smith, and Jesse Becker anchor the wine track — Smith brings particular institutional weight as former Executive Director of Wine for MGM Resorts and current VP of Global Strategy for Constellation Brands. On the cocktail side, Meaghan Dorman of Raines Law Room and Dear Irving, Lynnette Marrero, and Christine Kim of Service Bar — a North America’s 50 Best Bars honoree — represent serious mixology credentials, not celebrity garnish.
The James Beard Foundation has a dedicated evening on the program. That detail matters. The Foundation’s involvement signals industry legitimacy at a level that no amount of PR can manufacture.
The Programming
The event spans four days of ticketed experiences at every level — from large-scale tasting parties and industry panels to intimate seated dinners and cocktail masterclasses.
Signature highlights include a 24K: Caviar & The Classics dinner at The Pinky Ring by Bruno Mars at Bellagio; a Time & Terroir vintage wine dinner at Westoria in The Cosmopolitan; and an Opening Night Party at ARIA’s Yucca Pool. The full program continues to build, with additional talent and experiences still to be announced.
Drink Las Vegas is also benefiting Keep Memory Alive, supporting research, treatment, and care for brain disorders at Cleveland Clinic Nevada — a charitable alignment that adds meaningful context to the event’s ambitions.
Why This Matters Beyond Vegas
Food and beverage festivals are not a new concept. But a festival of this caliber, anchored by a single hospitality company’s portfolio and staged across a city with the infrastructure of the Las Vegas Strip, is genuinely unprecedented in scale. If the execution matches the lineup, Drink Las Vegas has a reasonable claim to becoming the most significant annual food and beverage event in the United States within a few years of launch.
The inaugural edition is the proof of concept. September will answer the question.
Tickets are on sale now at drinklasvegas.com.
Attendees must be 21 or older. Accommodations are available through MGM Resorts.
