Bobby Flay isn’t going anywhere.

While speaking with PEOPLE at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen on Friday, the Food Network star shared that he is “here to stay” with the network that helped build his stardom.

Flay’s culinary career was on the rise even before making his debut on the network in 1995. In 1982, he was selected to be part of Food & Wine’s (a brand of PEOPLE’s parent company Dotdash Meredith) annual class of “Best New Chefs”, but the awards weren’t presented in-person that year. Three decades later, the festival — which is celebrating its 40th