Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival Steak Guide: Two Event Hosts and a Wagyu Detour

Steak appears in three very different forms around the 2026 Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival. Meat Market hosts a ticketed Friday lunch on Palm Beach. SeaHawk Prime by David Burke hosts a Friday evening event in Lake Park. Palm Beach Meats is not a festival host, but its West Palm Beach butcher-shop restaurant makes a compelling independent Wagyu stop between festival days.

That distinction matters. Calling all three event hosts overstates the schedule, and calling all three conventional steakhouses misses what makes the comparison useful. Think of this as two official festival experiences and one festival-week detour, each suited to a different kind of beef-focused meal.

For festival dates and planning details, visit the official Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival site and review the festival schedule.

Meat Market: the polished seated lunch

Meat Market hosts Lunch With Friends at noon Friday, Dec. 11. The four-course seated lunch features wines from Chris Carpenter, placing the restaurant’s prime cuts and contemporary steakhouse approach inside a structured pairing menu. This is the most traditional special-occasion experience of the three: a set time, a reserved seat and a meal designed to unfold slowly.

The Palm Beach dining room sits on Bradley Place and serves dinner outside the event. A regular reservation offers more control over the cut, sides and pace, while the festival lunch trades that flexibility for a curated menu and wine story. Pick Meat Market when the ideal steak meal includes polished service, a full table and a bottle chosen to stay through the main course.

Because the lunch includes four courses and wine, do not stack it automatically with HMF Social at 3 p.m. Guests headed to another Friday event should leave a genuine break between tickets.

SeaHawk Prime: David Burke’s chef-driven route

SeaHawk Prime hosts An Evening With David Burke & Friends at 7 p.m. Friday in Lake Park. The festival lists it as a walk-around tasting, which shifts the focus from ordering one steak to sampling a chef’s ideas across multiple bites. Burke’s name is central to the event, making this the choice for diners drawn to personality and presentation as much as the steakhouse category.

On a normal night, SeaHawk Prime lets guests explore the restaurant as a complete surf-and-turf destination. The festival format is more social and fluid; the standard reservation is better for comparing cuts, adding sides and settling into dinner. Lake Park is north of Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, so build Friday travel around this event rather than treating it as a quick add-on.

Palm Beach Meats: the independent Wagyu detour

Palm Beach Meats explicitly describes itself as more than a butcher shop, more than a restaurant and more than a gourmet market. Its West Palm Beach location specializes in Wagyu, serving an approachable menu while also selling beef to cook at home. The MICHELIN Guide recognizes Palm Beach Meats with a Bib Gourmand, a distinction awarded for good-quality, good-value cooking.

It does not host a ticketed event on the current festival schedule. That is an advantage for some visitors: a meal here does not require a festival pass, set menu or fixed seating. Stop in on a separate day to eat Wagyu in a casual setting, browse the market or take something home. It is not the right pre-dinner appetizer before another tasting; it deserves to be the meal.

Which steak experience fits?

Choose Meat Market for a classic seated event with a formal wine-pairing arc. Choose SeaHawk Prime for a walk-around night organized around David Burke and a more playful chef-driven identity. Choose Palm Beach Meats for an accessible Wagyu meal and market visit outside the ticketed program.

The best schedule may include one festival host and the Wagyu detour on another day, rather than all three in a weekend sprint. Confirm event availability and pricing on the festival site, then check each restaurant’s current hours and reservation policy directly. The common ingredient is beef; the experience around it changes completely.