ATLANTA — The Super Bowl seems to have a gravitational pull on big names: not just in sports, not just in entertainment, but also food.
That’s how you wind up with Wolfgang Puck, the celebrity chef, in town for one day for an event that isn’t even for the public. The culinary legend runs the catering team at Georgia Aquarium. Tuesday he oversaw the Super Bowl LIII welcome party for the media. Roughly 3,000 members of the press are in town this week. So is Chef Puck, who says this isn’t just a sporting event. It’s a food event ... in a rising food city.
"Atlanta is a great food city because it's such a mixing bowl of so many different nationalities," Puck told 11Alive's Matt Pearl. "Before you had a few good French restaurants and maybe some Italian restaurants. Now you have so many young chefs who are doing a tremendous job here."
Puck also joked about Atlanta's food scene compared to its sports scene.
"I really believe Atlanta is a better food city than football city," he said. "Now I must say the soccer team is really good, the Atlanta United. But the football team? I don't know! Two years ago they were almost there and went down. But the food scene is going up, and it's better than ever."
Saturday brings the biggest food event of the week: the Taste of the NFL, a fundraiser with top chefs and former players from each NFL city. Kevin Rathbun will represent Atlanta.
