Food and Theater Take Center Stage at Broadway Tastes with Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka

Fans of Broadway and food converged for New York City Wine & Food Festival's Broadway Tastes event.

Before the curtain closed on the ninth-annual New York City Wine & Food Festival, the scene was set for Broadway Tastes at the Metropolitan West, where fans of Broadway and food converged on Sunday morning. It opened with a full house, and hosts Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka set the stage for special performances from the casts of Chicago, Rotten Tomatoes and Beautiful, the Carole King Musical, while all-star chefs served up brunch bites inspired by the most-popular Broadway musicals. These were some of our favorites.

Hakuna ma-babka! The folks at Breads Bakery went all-out with a completely epic, roaringly awesome babka creation inspired by the musical rendition of The Lion King. With a flowing chocolate-woven babka mane, this chocolatey lion really was king of the jungle.

Famous for Chicago-style hot dogs, Shake Shack doled out loaded, jazzed-up dogs in honor of Chicago. Each flat-top dog came topped with the good stuff: pickle relish, onion, cucumber, pickle, tomato, sport pepper, mustard and celery salt.

If you’ve had the opportunity to see the musical Waitress (or you’ve at least heard about it), you know that the audience is greeted by that fresh-baked pie smell upon walking into the theater. And the same goes for the show’s slice of Broadway Tastes, where the crew at Bubby’s supplied two kinds of pies: Pumpkin Pie with Caramel Pecans, and Local Macoun Apple and Cranberry Pie.

There was a whole new world of flavor in store thanks to Ilili, which served aptly named Magic Carpet Manouche inspired by Aladdin on Broadway. Each mini za’atar-topped bread came slathered with tangy labne, tomato, cucumber and olives.

The Smith team took us back to the Emerald City with Green Eggs and Ham inspired by Wicked. The deviled eggs truly were green as can be.

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