Featured Image: Kellie Walton
A food and wine festival is a beautiful thing – beloved area chefs come together for a day or weekend filled with good food, fellowship, and flowing drinks. The JXN Food & Wine Festival, launched in 2024 and growing bigger and better each year, welcomes chefs from across the state to dish up their specialties, set against a backdrop of national top-chef demonstrations, live music, and plenty of mingling.
I had the pleasure of attending the 2025 JXN Food & Wine Festival, but the event itself was my figurative dessert. I spent the entire week before road tripping through Mississippi, starting on the gorgeous Gulf Coast, winding through historic small towns with big personalities, and ultimately, ending in Jackson.
Here are all of my hungry highlights.
Coastal Mississippi
I flew into the Biloxi airport to kick off my culinary marathon with a bang. The fitting first stop was lunch at The Chimneys, a decades-old restaurant tucked inside a gorgeous historic home. The inside is cozy and quaint, but the back porch is spectacular in its own right. Take a seat facing south for this view: a magnificent oak tree casting its shadow over lush grass, all of it fading from green grass to sparkling blue ocean before disappearing on the horizon.
We checked into Hotel Vela, a boutique stay in Gulfport with gorgeous coastal touches–bright wallpaper, retro touches, clean aesthetic. Soon after check-in, we gathered in the onsite restaurant, Siren Social Club, for dinner and drinks. Chef Austin Sumrall catapulted in local popularity after opening White Pillars in neighboring Biloxi. While White Pillars is elegant and modern, Siren is a little irreverent and full of personality. We shared plenty of starters from trout caviar and oysters to some of the best biscuits I’ve ever had, then found a bit of room in our stomachs for entrees of ravioli, scallops, and beef wellington. The food was spectacular, but my cocktail was equally impressive: a spicy margarita where jalapeños were pureed and frozen into the drink’s oversized ice cube. It was a choose-your-own spice adventure that got better with every sip.
Before departing Coastal Mississippi, I snagged a tray of crawfish and royal reds from Clawdaddy’s Crawfish and enjoyed them beachside.
Hattiesburg
Being a fan of trains and train travel, I was eager to visit Hattiesburg because of its nickname as the “Hub City”—it has a robust rail history. I would learn in no time that the town’s allure goes far beyond train tracks, because our first stop at Buschman Street Cafe came to impress. Chef and owner Terry Jackson’s pride in his business is apparent in the decor, the regulars, the maintained grounds, and the dishes. For lunch, that includes fried oyster salad, osso bucco, and grilled steaks.
Vicksburg
I departed Hattiesburg certainly wanting more, but we had a schedule to maintain and thus had to carry on. My attitude soon changed upon arrival in Vicksburg—a small town packed with quirks and character. It’s where Coca-Cola was first bottled, it has a massive National Military Park, and it may hold a few residents present in soul, not body.
Speaking of, we potentially joined some during our welcome dinner at Anchuca, a Greek-Revival style home from the 1830s that now houses a restaurant, bakery, and hotel. We gathered around a period-appropriate dining table and indulged in steaks, sides, nice wine, and pleasant conversation before retiring to another historic home for the night, Oak Hall.
Meridian
We traded quirks for quintessential Mississippi charm in Meridian, home to a historic downtown district, a massive arts museum, an opera theater, and a recently refurbished 16-story Art Deco hotel, The Threefoot, at its center. After a lovely rooftop glass of wine while the sunset bathed the town in orange and pink, we walked to Weidmann’s, Mississippi’s oldest restaurant, for dinner. Tradition seeped through the entire meal, from the iconic peanut butter crock and crackers on the table to a packed house of regulars, a famous black bottom pie on the dessert menu, and a members-only club upstairs.
The following day, the theme of locally-loved and tried-and-true continued with lunch at Jean’s. It’s an everyone-knows-everyone (and their business), and someone is going to ask about your momma and daddy kind of place, but with this being multiple days into a Mississippi road trip, it was old hat for this tourist. Still stuffed from last night’s redfish, I opted for a pimento cheese sandwich on sourdough, adorned with a tomato as it should be.
Ridgeland
A short but memorable pit stop in Ridgeland introduced me to a beautiful nonprofit and my new favorite Southern shower food, all in one. For lunch, I visited the Lily Pad Cafe, which has a mission to help individuals with developmental and learning disabilities conquer the hospitality industry. Then, they “leap” from the program to other restaurants around town. Next door, the same nonprofit operates a gift shop filled to the brim with handmade crafts matching the mission.
When it came time for tea, Ridgeland’s CW Organics Tea Room was the place to be. We enjoyed a tower of treats, including Deviled Strawberries, a delightfully sweet take on a Southern classic.
Jackson
The marathon of meals was nearing its end, but Jackson made sure we upped our pants size before heading home. We ventured to Cathead Distillery for cocktails and a tour (their honeysuckle vodka remains my favorite in the world), then joined JXN Food & Wine Fest-goers for a group dinner led by chef Nick Wallace, with guest chefs Vishwesh Bhatt, Gabriel Pascuzzi, and Enrika Williams.
Festival day kicked off with breakfast in the retro Fondren District at Brent’s Drugs, which has been around since the 1950s and has a super cool speakeasy hidden within. A storm was rolling in, so we opted for takeout from The Pig & Pint before venturing to the event.
At the festival itself, I tried more bites than I could count, a standout being a fried bologna sandwich from chef Chaz Lindsay and more caviar from my new coastal friend, Chef Sumrall. It was a joyous celebration of Mississippi’s finest food, surrounded by proud locals and eager visitors who had ventured far and wide.
On our farewell day, brunch began at the Iron Horse Grill, best known for its BBQ and live music. We visited a Mississippi institution, Hal & Mal’s, for a lunch consisting of nachos and a pitcher of tots (literally).
No matter which Mississippi city you’re visiting, the chances of finding an incredible meal made by chefs who care are above average. This year’s JXN Food & Wine Festival takes place March 20-22, and tickets are available here. BRB, booking my flight.
This article is presented in partnership with Visit Mississippi, a Modern South Founding Partner.
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