Big Bite Food Festival
Gateway Event Center
April 20, 2024
I’m only a little bit embarrassed about the noise I made in public when I put Antoinette Bakery’s creme fraiche macaron topped with caviar and lemon zest into my mouth on Saturday night at Big Bite. And here’s why I don’t feel that bad about it: I wasn’t the only one. Other folks at other tables were making the same ecstatic noises I’d just been making, eating other things. “That’s the sound we like to hear,” said the baker behind the table, adorably pumping her fist.
This transcendent macaron (warm, salty, creamy-sweet, acid-glinting, pillowy, with a suggestion of crunch as perfectly proportioned as the whisper of vermouth in a martini) was only the second “bite” I had at Big Bite. By the time I left, the whole night seemed like infinite versions of that head-shaking, happy-making moment.
Last year’s launch of Big Bite was crazy fun: all up in the hot zone of June’s Tulsa Tough cycling action, spilling across multiple floors of the OKPOP Museum, and paired with an outdoor concert called Big Ride that kept the party going after the races wrapped up. But this year, Big Bite shifted to its own stage, date, and location—a move that vaulted it from a Tulsa Tough add-on into a focused, totally effervescent, seriously excellent event.
The Gateway—that building wedged into downtown’s east end, covered with colorful murals by Clean Hands and other Tulsa legends—is more compact than last year’s location, and while you might think that’s not the best idea when expecting a giant crowd, it actually worked so much better. Spread throughout three large rooms and a tent-covered outdoor area (all one one level), the event’s 30 Oklahoma restaurant, bar, and brewery tables were arranged so that the flow made it easy to glimpse something delicious-looking in someone’s hand, do a scan across the room, quickly make your way to whatever table they’d found it at, take a moment to dance in front of DJ Hidden Display’s booth, and not even jostle too many people while doing it. (Everybody else was doing it, too.)