The Equestrian Manor at The World Equestrian Center

It seems like there's always something new at the World Equestrian Center in Ocala. This place is spectacular. They have just added an elegant event venue, and it has four restaurants. David Martin joining us live to tell us all about the equestrian manor. Hello, David. That's right there, Amy. And all four of those restaurants will be representing themselves at the Ocala Food and Wine Festival happening next week. And it is my sincere honor and pleasure to welcome back a friend of Good Day Orlando, Mr. Jeremy Gow. Jeremy, how are you doing, my friend? Good morning. Good to see you. So Jeremy, of course, is the Senior Director of Hospitality Operations. Very important title. And I want to let our audience know that this Food and Wine Festival, now in its... Sixth year. Sixth year? Oh my gosh. Flying by. It's a three-day event. It happens right here all over the property. How do you describe it to people who've never been? It's a great introduction to our culinary scene. And a lot of our customers meet us for the first time at the Food and Wine Festival and become lifelong fans throughout the remainder of the year. So great introduction, reason to come back for the rest of the year to the World Equestrian. We've got some video of it from the past several years, and it's fun. It's indoors, it's outdoors, there's all kinds of things to do. I haven't been part of it for a couple of days there. My buddy Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel also joins me. It's part of the tasting event, which is the singular event on Saturday afternoon, right? That's a la carte ticket sales to that, 1 to 5 p.m. in our exposition center. We'll have over 60 or 70 beverage vendors, food stations everywhere, culinary competitions that support young culinary operations from Florida Restaurant Lodging Association's ProStart. So it's a lot of fun inside the expo. That's terrific. And so there's a lot to see and do and taste and learn, of course. But beyond just the food and wine, Jeremy, we're at the World Equestrian Center, the premier destination for horse events. And that particular weekend, you've got something going on, and we've got video of that to show. Absolutely. What is it? So we've got one of our hunter-jumper events going on at the same time as the Food and Wine Festival. Great way for non-equestrians to be introduced to equestrian sport, but it blends the two lifestyles together in a really fun way. It's really unique. It is. So you get to see under the stars at night the horses jumping. Saturday night we'll even do a dinner watching the horse show competition at Food and Wine. Right. So it's a great mix of equestrian activity and filling your belly with some of the finest food. Absolutely. Courtesy of the gentleman standing right next to you. Let's say hello to the chef here at Willow. This is called the White Willow Pan Asian Concept, Chef Carl Reinhart. How are you doing, my friend? Doing very well. Nice to meet you. I'm going to stand in between you all so we can talk to you a bit about what you do here. So, this has been open not even a year yet. Not a year yet. Crowds are loving it. Almost a year. It'll be a year in January. Right. Yeah, it's a great time here. We have two balconies, great views, great drinks. We have sake, a wide array of Japanese whiskeys, and great Pan-Asian food, and sushi as well. We should mention, this is the first time you've had an Asian concept at WEC. Yeah, and we knew we wanted an Asian concept, but we wanted to be approachable to both. So half the menu is cooked from the kitchen, and half the menu could be raw or served from the sushi chef. Speaking of raw, what do you have on the top there, chef? So starting over here, we have our nigiri moriawase. So it's going to be eight pieces of hand-selected nigiri with fish flown directly from Japan twice a week. Next to it, you're going to have the Mary's roll. That's going to be a little shrimp tempura, mango, cucumber, and strawberry on top. You have sunset roll that's going up on the menu today. with salmon, avocado inside, tuna on top, with a yuzu kimchi marmalade, pickled Fresno. And then right there you have the best seller, which is our reef and beef cowboy roll. Has a miso lobster mix inside with avocado on top, A5 Wagyu and potato crisp. Gorgeous. Now from the hot menu, so to speak. Well, not there yet. We actually have our two dishes, which are crudos. We have, this right here is our Kampachi Amarillo. That is going to be for the food and wine dinner next Friday. That will be the opening appetizer for that dinner. And next to it is a salmon truffle. And now moving on to the hot dishes, we have our Mary's Sweet and Sour Chicken, which is, of course, Mary the owner's favorite dish. And on top there we have our Miso Seabass, traditional, very popular staple, right next to that you have our sticky ribs that are going on the menu today as well new item right below we have our lobster kimchi fried rice which will be served saturday next saturday for the food and wine festival tasting and right next to that is our beef and broccoli beautiful okay so a lot of this food represented at the ocala food and wine festival friday saturday Sunday next week. Where can people buy tickets and packages and the a la carte tickets? Yeah, we still have a couple packages left. OcalaFoodAndWineFest.com is where you can find the package or the a la carte tickets for Saturday as well. Okay. It is a fabulous event, I can attest. I've been there a few years now. MCing and judging and being part of the fun meeting a lot of viewers so I know a lot of you watching right now have been here. Tell your friends and family because it's a great time. Chef, we gotta go. We're out of time but before we leave, which one thing I should put in my mouth right now? Probably that Toro over there at the end yep all right so amy and danielle what are you doing next week can you join me for the Ocala Food and Wine Festival oh we would love to I am in that I love that place it seems like there is always something new at the World Equestrian Center in Ocala and they just added a very elegant event to the venue box David Martin is live this morning to show off this beautiful new place called the Equestrian Manor hello David hello there ladies It's great to hear from you. It's my pleasure once again to reintroduce you to Jeremy Gao, who is the Director of Hospitality Operations here at the World Equestrian Center. Jeremy, good morning once again. Good morning, David. So I want to let our audience know that next weekend is the three-day Ocala Food and Wine Fest here at the World Equestrian Center. For those who have never been, they need to come out. Tell us why. It's a great introduction to our culinary team here at the World Equestrian Center. We meet a lot of our new customers that join us for a great weekend with four separate events, but they become our lifelong customers because these chefs do this year-round. How many restaurants are represented in the festival next weekend? So we've got 14 unique dining concepts around the property, and everybody pitches in. So everybody will be represented, as well as some local restaurants that are joining as well. And to recap, on Friday night you have a chef's dinner. On Saturday you have what they call a tasting event, a grand tasting event. Yours truly will be part of that with Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel. We host, we emcee, we have a good time, we crack jokes, we try to sound important. and know what we're talking about. We never do, but it's a good time. And then on Saturday night, something new. We are. We're going to blend the equestrian operations and the equestrian sport together with unbelievable hospitality and do another dinner on the Grand Terrace at Stirrups to watch the horse show. And I know we have some video of some of those horse events. If you've never been up here, man, this is the weekend to do it because you get the best of both worlds, the pomp and circumstance of the property with the food and beverages, but the seeing the horses do their thing while you're eating and drinking it's magical it is and it's where the only place that you can do that unbelievable hospitality and world-class equestrian sport in the same venue yeah our jaws were on the floor watching these horses jump while we're eating the finest food i love it i cannot recommend it enough all the package information can be found on what website uh ocalafoodandwinefest.com okay so you and i are standing in one of the 14 restaurant concepts on property and one of the four newest ones here at the equestrian Manor. You call it Genovese. Genovese. It's our Italian concept. And you got something special here. The marquee attraction in the middle of the restaurant is this private dining room. Yeah, we added quite a bit more private dining rooms when we opened the Equestrian Manor. So this seats up to 12, and it was actually named after our owner's grandmother, Genevieve. So she hangs out in here with the dinner and the beautiful portrait. And you have wines from all regions of Italy, don't you? All 20 regions from Italy are represented, as well as champagne. We love champagne and a couple other fan favorites from around the world fantastic let's talk about cocktails for a second because when we come to the ocala food and wine festival it's not just wine it's actual cocktails too of which you have many that serves right here at this restaurant what here on the left genevieve's we've got some a great martini program but we also have some house-made limoncello that the beverage team puts together here in house fantastic and then we've got a really fun negroni program different negronis with different flavors and they've got They play with ice and do some custom ice work here. It's beautiful. I love it. All right, let's talk about food, though. And no one better than the chef de cuisine, Christopher Sullivan. Christopher, good morning to you, my friend. How are you doing? Good to see you. Great to see you. So let's talk about the dishes you're most proud of here that are on the menu for the tasting event, for the Food and Wine Festival, and here at the restaurant. Top left corner. So we have the prosciutto melon salad with honey whipped ricotta and truffle vinaigrette. That's a take on a classic that we really zhuzh up a little bit. You do, and it's so pretty. I almost want to just take a picture of it and not eat it. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's pretty, but you're supposed to eat it, though. Very good. What's the thing in the bowl? This is our beef tartare with julienne truffle on it, truffle aioli underneath the Parmesan cheese. And then up top, we have our truffle butter emulsion with oyster mushroom ragu, and that's bucatini that we push every day. Down here, we have our dish for the food and wine. It's a squid ink rigatoni with Calabrian chili, seafood ragu. and over here we have a basil pesto capoletti it's corn and mascarpone filling uh and down here we have our lobster risotto this little basil um oil agrumato oil we do our own lobster tagliatelle in house that's that orange little pop of color that you see and then there's lobster hiding underneath that parmesan cheese outstanding now this restaurant's been open since january of this year and you're getting good reviews yes yes very flattering very flattering people are taking it Really, really well. We're very well-received. It's very romantic up here, too. And a lot of dudes are proposing to their girlfriends up here on the terrace. We had a proposal on Sunday, actually. We did. Oh, and she said yes? She did, yes. We haven't had a no yet. That's great. We don't want a no. No no's up here at Genovese. Again, one of four brand-new restaurants and dining concepts inside the Equestrian Manor, which is a 300,000-square-foot venue for events and hospitality. This is on top of the brand-new Riding Academy, pet-friendly hotel you can stay at up here, and, of course, the classic equestrian hotel. Absolutely. And they're also building a giant retail center with 32 storefronts. Yeah, 32 retail locations coming soon. WEC just continues to expand. And if you've never been here, now's the time. Next weekend, the Ocala Food and Wine Fest. One more time, that website? Ocalafoodandwinefest.com. You can buy packages, you can spend the night, or you can just come for a single event. I know a lot of our viewers just come for that Saturday. Saturday's great. and it's wonderful. Four hours, one to five, you roll out of here. You come say hi to me. We'll take pictures and eat and drink to our heart's content. This is a wonderful event in year six. Congratulations, Christopher. Thank you very much for that. Okay. I tried that lobster risotto before we leave because this is one of my favorite dishes. Paolo can't have lobster because he's allergic to shellfish. So I will eat on his behalf, ladies. In the meantime, can you come out next weekend? You got plans? Oh, I'll be there. Actually, we're going to be driving right past there we're going up to Gainesville for the Gator Sooners game so we'll stop there on our way there's always something new at the World Equestrian Center in Ocala this place is stunning so they just added a very elegant event venue as well with four very nice restaurants and Fox 35's David Martin is there looking swanky and he's going to tell us all about the Equestrian Manor good morning David yeah Jessica Dobson I'm not sure they know what they're doing letting me in like this but it's a classy venue I had to wear jackets that's what That's what I know for sure. Jeremy Gao joins us now. He's the director of hospitality operations at the World Equestrian Center. Jeremy, good morning once again. Morning, David. Okay, so we are in what's called the Equestrian Manor portion of the property. It's 300,000 square feet. You've got four different dining concepts in here, big ballrooms, meeting spaces, four or five stories actually. Five stories, one below. And this glorious staircase, what do you say about this? we like, we went for subtle was our approach um but no design beautifully um at the highest tier beautiful event space in between we host a lot of weddings a lot of corporate and meetings here as well and then the dining concepts are unbelievable all right we're here to talk about the 2026 Ocala Food and Wine Festival happening next weekend we got some video of the previous events you're on year six and i've been fortunate to be part of this festival now for the past three or four years emceeing and judging. And I tell you what, I try to tell all my friends worth every penny to come up here because what you get is a first class experience. Yeah. The culinary team here has been a core of the property. And soon you're going to meet the first employee hired, which was the executive pastry chef. That's how important culinary is here. They get to really show their skills all weekend. Thanks for being a part of it. Yeah, absolutely. By the way, Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel will be here. No hurricanes. So he's here for fun as well. He'll join me on the on the mc table and this is the one of four uh concepts here Emma's Patisserie that's uh who's Emma by the way um Emma was a relative of the family that started the business but we had such great success with our first Emmas we decided to double down and go a little bit bigger um with this concept it introduced a lot of new things though chocolatiers bread making from scratch as well as a house made gelato program before we meet the chef there i want and make sure people understand that this is still a premier horse destination. And so one of the events on the Food and Wine Festival, Saturday night specifically, you've got a horse jumping event while we're eating dinner on the terrace. We're going to have an unbelievable hunter-jumper event. We're the only place in the United States where you can combine unbelievable equestrian sport at the highest level and luxury hospitality with great culinary through that whole weekend. So you'll be able to eat a three-course dinner with the chefs and watch the jumping at the same time. You feel like you really have gone to a different part of the world right here, but it's just beautiful O'Callaghan. All right, let's meet the star of the show here at Emma's Patisserie, Chef Johan Lepescon, a great friend of our show. How are you doing, my friend? I'm great, David. How are you? It's so good to see you again. He's been on our show countless times, and how do you describe this scene that we're in right here? Grand. It's grand. It's detailed. It's very nicely done and finished. It's all about quality, class, and distinction when you think about it, right? every single piece is individually finished and you find your staples but you also find some great French European inspired desserts nougat truffles our own take on moon pies look at those right let's go to your table over here we can see some of these items up close and personal because you will be part of the food and wine festival as well in fact you were the first employee who Jeremy just told me the first employee they ever hired here the very first one I still you look the youngest first time I saw him Amy you'll get a kick out of He grew his hair out. I mean, last time we saw him, you had shorter hair, but you're going for that ponytail, aren't you? No more fade for me no more. All right, let's start here. Let me swap places with you, Paolo. We'll reverse it here. What do you have on this table right here? All right, right there we have our homemade donuts. So donuts are a great part of our program. Filled bomboloni or cake donuts, traditional, or just sprinkles. There is something for everybody from the very, very hungry people to just one donut. And your desserts always are Instagram worthy. My goodness gracious. Look at those, you know, and now we're getting viral with all those fruit looking desserts So there's a lot of attention on TikTok and other social media platforms So the secret is you take one you crack it open and you reveal surprise. So we have our little orange We have our lemon, we have our raspberries, so much fun By the way, if you're wondering where I recognize Johan from tell us what TV show you were on I done Summer Baking Championship on the Food Network I did Harry Potter: Wizard of Baking and also did Beat Bobby Flay Actually, the lemon poppy seed tart over there was a Food Network winning on a challenge at the summer bake-off So it's a little nod It's a little nod to it by the way before we go you want us to try your chocolates here because you have a very Exceptional chocolate program. Yes, so chocolate program everything made from scratch in our own chocolate room that is downstairs This specific truffle is actually for a French wine celebration So this is a wine-based chocolate bonbon with a 2020 red blend from California. We're very excited about that. Jeremy, grab one. Let's do one together, Dave. All right. Cheers. Here. Yeah, let's do it all together. This is just classic. Cheers. This is the Ocala Food and Wine Fest next weekend. What is the website before you eat that? Ocalafoodandwinefest.com. That's easy. Ocalafoodandwinefest.com. Super easy. You'll be here. You'll be there. I'll be there. Oh. Right? That explosion. It's got to be. So, we actually did a wine jelly and a wine ganache, and those are layered chocolate. Absolutely delicious. Get your tickets for the tasting event on that Saturday next weekend. You will not regret it. Minimally, four hours, you'll roll out of here. But consider spending the night, too, if you have... We still have some rooms available. Still have some rooms available. You don't want to drive home after you eat all that food and drink all that drink. No, you want to stay around and come for breakfast. Come for breakfast. There you go. Ladies, I hope we've convinced you. It's sensational here at the World Equestrian Center. now for the sixth annual of Calip Wood and Wine Fest next weekend back to you