In honor of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, which is hands-down my favorite annual event, the February/March edition of Haute Living Miami steps up its coverage of all things related to fine dining & drinking. In 2009, our Feb/Mar cover featured three of the country’s most notable chefs—Daniel Boulud, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Masaharu Morimoto. The issue also included features about personal wine cellars, and a comparison of Dom Pérignon Œnothèque vintage 1995 and the Krug Clos du Mesnil 1995. The previous year, we caught up with Francis Ford-Coppola and also featured China Grill Management’s Jeffrey Chodorow, and our cover featured Al and Shareef Malnik of The Forge restaurant fame. (Just an FYI: That photo shoot was done by noted director Brett Ratner.)

While the SBWFF brings some of the Food Channel’s top stars to the sands of South Beach, the weekend is also a celebration of the best chefs and restaurants in Miami. So for the most recent edition of Haute Living, we asked notable Miamian Jacquelyn Powers to chat with our region’s culinary dynamites and report their perspectives about what the weekend means for the local dining scene.

Powers’ piece, “Miami’s Flair for Food & Wine,” highlights the who’s who of Miami dining, including chefs Michael Schwartz, Sean Brasel, Jonathan Eismann, Cindy Hutson, Howie Kleinberg, Steve Martorano, Allen Susser, Norman Van Aken, Michelle Bernstein, and Andrea Curto-Randazzo. During the festival, these local top toques will be going head-to-head with the likes of Emeril Lagasse, Rachael Ray, Guy Fieri, Paula Deen, and Sandra Lee. Powers writes, “But after all of the Food Network stars have departed, Miamians will be back to dining at local hot spots where ’star’ chefs sweat over their stoves seven nights a week. Every night in Miami is a food festival, actually, with the bounty of talent that we have…” And we couldn’t agree with her more. So we caught up with additional chefs and restaurateurs in our “Culinary Power Players” article, also in the current edition. You can read both of these articles online, or pick up a copy of Haute Living Miami to see our full coverage for yourself.