Chef and television personality Geoffrey Zakarian has been announced as the host of the upcoming South Beach Wine & Food Festival Taste Fort Lauderdale which is happening on February 28 in Florida. Over the past few years, the chef has participated in several culinary events put together by South Beach, also known as “SoBe”, and this time there will be a Bloody Mary Brunch put on by the television series Chopped. This is the first time that the brunch was added to the lineup of the Taste series events, and it will include having several gin and vodka producers competing to see who can make the best Bloody Mary which is to be judge by the Chopped cast. It is going to be an exciting event for those involved in the culinary community, and hopefully draw in a large crowd of food fanatics. The Worcester, Massachusetts native started his culinary career by getting an associate’s degree from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, which is also where he met and worked as an apprentice chef under Le Cirque’s Chef David Boulud. By 1990, he became an executive chef and was even described as “trendy” by The New York Times while working at the Royalton Hotel in midtown Manhattan. He is known as having a cooking style that is modern with a lot of French influence and has owned two restaurants, Patroon in Manhattan and Blue Door in South Beach, Miami. Zakarian will be attending and participating in this year’s South Beach & Food Festival Taste Fort Lauderdale event happening later this month. Chopped fans in the area should definitely pencil in the date, because it’s going to be a lot of delicious fun.