The Community You Find In the Food Industry
Inspired by my experience at the LA Wine & Food Festival
Hi there!
I attended the first annual LA Wine & Food Festival over the weekend, which featured over 90 different chefs making delicious bites across 3 days. I immediately felt inspired to write about my experience after - but through a different lens than what I initially expected. This is not a foodie “here’s everything I ate” rundown, but instead a spotlight on the food community and how supportive & special it is.
Yes - there is heavy competition in the food space in certain aspects. It’s incredibly hard to run a restaurant, and be successful and survive on top of it. Half of Food Network’s programming is cooking competitions. But what I saw yesterday reminded me of the kinship and cheerleading you see in the food industry, just as much as you see the cutthroat competition.
What I saw were chefs supporting chefs - visiting each other’s booths to try each other’s dishes, embracing each other and posing for pictures. Food is art, and no one is going to respect the art more than a fellow chef or foodie. They know the work, time, and effort that goes into making a great dish. And in this instance of LAWFF - making a great bite, an arguably more difficult task. How do you sell someone on your food with one singular bite on a tiny plate?
I witnessed nothing but kindness and support throughout the afternoon, and it reminded me of all the epic collaborations I see on social media + experience IRL every day. Despite being a big city with a massive food industry, food lovers constantly find ways to come together, collaborate and innovate. It’s so inspiring and reminds me of why I love living here! I’m lucky to even be a small part of the food & culture scene in Los Angeles and never want to take it for granted.
I could go on and on with this topic, but I’ll leave you with some of my favorite bites & moments from the festival (I truly could not do a comprehensive round up because I lost count of how many plates we tried - maybe 25-30?!)
Thank you for reading, and be sure to always show kindness and support towards your favorite restaurants. They are grinding in order to serve you delicious food and create an unforgettable experience!
My Favorite Bites from LAWFF 2024
Caviar & butter on a cracker w/ a tiny radish from Lady & Larder, Stepladder Creamery + Roe Caviar
Mandarin coconut leche de tigre hamachi crudo from Surfing Fox
Brisket & pulled pork + slaw plate from Black Cat BBQ
72 hour French toast w/ mascarpone and yuzu jam from Sqirl
Bee pollen & espresso gelato from Uli’s
Peruvian scallop from Anajak Thai
As always, you can find even more LA content over on TikTok. I already posted my recap sizzle of the food fest, but stay tuned for more content from the weekend!
Ticket to Sarahdise Event Digest - Week of 3/4
Every week, I’m sharing events you should be checking out in LA. Here’s this week’s download!
Trivia Night at Mama Shelter first and third Wednesdays of the month!
Paint & Sip at Good Clean Fun Thursday 6-9 PM, book on Resy at the link
Smoke & Ashes BBQ is popping up at Omo Mercado this weekend - described as “backyard asado BBQ” - sounds DELISH!
Piano Hour at Alma’s on Virgil every Sunday. Chic.