We Got the First Look at the 151st Kentucky Derby Menu

When a full-size tractor trailer pulls up to the Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville it could hold basically anything needed to pull off one of the largest single-day sporting events in North America. It could be a trailer full of Kentucky bibb lettuce for a single salad on the Kentucky Derby menu.

The grandeur of the annual event cannot be overstated. Neither can the scale. So, the year-long process for developing the menu for the oldest continuously run sporting event in North America must factor in logistics for feeding 60,000-plus premium guests for an entire day while providing a unique culinary perspective for a fresh experience each year.

For the running of the 151st Kentucky Derby on May 3, that means returning to the roots of the Louisville racetrack, quite literally.

“This year we took a really good look at the seasonality of things,” Robert Lopez, senior executive chef at Churchill Downs for Levy, tells Food & Wine. “A lot of people are going outside the seasonality of their regions, and we want to get back to that within the region.”

Grand plans can only become Derby-day realities if they’re executable at a massive scale. The Kentucky Derby hosts roughly 157,000 visitors, with more than half of those in premium spaces (not concessions). Each year the chefs develop a base menu to serve 60,000 guests who will dine, with another 20 menus to serve even higher-end locations, catering to a wide variety of flavor preferences.

“This is not just burgers and hot dogs,” Lopez says, adding that more than 100 chefs from around the country work the event. Levy and Churchill Downs work with nearly two dozen local farmers and producers to make it happen. “This is fine dining at a mass level. We need talent to execute that.”

The official 151st Kentucky Derby menu features a pair of salads, three sides, three entrees, and a host of desserts.

The Bluegrass Fields salad is the one with Kentucky bibb lettuce, topped with seasonal berries, toasted almonds, a raspberry, and poppyseed vinaigrette. The 5,100 heads of lettuce come locally. “That’s just for one salad,” Braxton Cubero, the produce procurement expert at Piazza Produce for Churchill Downs, tells Food & Wine. “We are also bringing in 6,000 pounds of spring mix.” In total, the event will serve 25,000 pounds of lettuce.

The other key salad is the grilled corn and tomato salad with baby arugula, cherry tomatoes, grilled corn and a creamy pimento cheese dressing. The seasonality of the grilled corn and tomatoes offer freshness, while the pimento cheese dressing brings a new format for a popular Southern ingredient.

This year’s entrees feature a pan-roasted chicken breast with local Vidalia onions, a slow-cooked beef tip with Kentucky peppercorn sauce, and an Old Forester butter shrimp with orzo. Lopez will source 3,000 pounds of shrimp for the event and says he wanted to get back to the spring-focused Vidalia onion for its sweetness.

To keep a menu fresh, especially coming off a milestone 150th event, Lopez won’t do the same dish twice. The team creates new themes considering culinary trends, like the growing use of duck fat. This year that comes in the form of duck fat roasted fingerling potatoes with crispy rosemary. 

Additional sides include brown butter farro, roasted root vegetables, and lemon honey harvest brussels sprouts, which requires 3,120 pounds of brussels sprouts.

Part of every Derby menu is the drinks, a menu dominated by the Mint Julep. There’s plenty of wine supplied by Jackson Family Wines and cocktails from Woodford Reserve. You’ll see cocktails with subtle nuances of mint and bourbon to match the Julep.

The more expensive the ticket to a premium space, the more surprise additions to the menu. In some places, the base menu is the staple, while in at least 20 others it serves as a backdrop. Last year, for example, James Beard Award-winning chefs were cooking live in some places, fresh oysters were served tableside in another, and high-end ingredients marked others, from wagyu prime rib to bourbon cherry brisket burnt ends and plenty of black truffles. “We keep mystery behind it,” Lopez says about providing new elements each year.

Charcuterie boards are loaded with Indianapolis’ Smoking Goose Meatery and Capriole Goat Cheese from Greenville, Indiana. Capriole founder Judy Schad, who was at Churchill Downs the day Secretariat won in 1973, tells Food & Wine she’s long had a Derby passion and has created cheeses, such as the popular aged Old Kentucky Tomme, for the Kentucky Derby. Churchill Downs now uses more than half-a-dozen Capriole varieties across the grounds.

With guests arriving at 9 a.m., chefs start arriving at 2 a.m. for a day of races before the nearly 7 p.m. running of the Kentucky Derby. The menu will get flipped at least three times during the day, but there have to be dishes that can be kept fresh.

“We try to break these dishes,” Lopez says. “We stress-test them to make sure they don’t only last 30 or 45 minutes. “There are a lot of formulas behind writing this menu.”

The famed fashion of the Derby — high-end sundresses, suits, and hats — plays into culinary choices, as chefs want to keep guests tidy, especially when fine motor skills may dip after a day of drinking. So, creating finger-food-style desserts is key. This year that includes tens of thousands of Kentucky whoopie pies, mini bourbon cakes, bourbon balls, and the traditional jockey silks cookies. Even the cookie gets an upgrade with a new style that the chefs hope people taste and deem to be better than the year before.

Chefs are also thinking of Instagram. “When I sit down and write a menu, I think of my wife and would she want to take a picture,” Lopez says. Many times, the handheld desserts get taken onto a balcony for a backdropped photo that is then shared on social media. “You want to get that one item, and go show the world. We are looking to make memories.”