Win Free Tickets to the Best Events of the 2018 Food Bowl!

Come hungry! The 2nd edition of the LA Food Bowl will guarantee a month full of events. Here's your chance to score free tickets to the best events.

Thanks to our friends at The Wiltern Theatre, we are offering free tickets to some of the LA Food Bowl events. Click here to enter the ticket giveaway.

It’s that time fo the year again! From May 1 through 31 across Southern California, something like 100 chefs, sous chefs, restaurant owners, and celebrities will collaborate on more than 200 meals and events to raise money for charity, while lso providing you with your favorite foods, events and occasions to meet and make new friends. Yes, we’re talking about the Los Angeles Times Food Bowl.

Before we start, did you know that the name LA Food Bowl was inspired by Jonathan Gold’s love of ‘Things in a Bowl’ ? Well now you do. In fact, the party launches April 30 with an all-star “Things in a Bowl” dinner at Rossoblu celebrating Milliken and Feniger, chefs and owners of Border Grill.

RELATED: Jonathan Gold on the Best Italian Food in LA

Now in its second year, the Food Bowl, an annual monthlong festival, will celebrate the city’s dynamic and diverse food scene, while raising awareness and funds to stop hunger and promote waste reduction and sustainability through charity partners and participating events. Los Angeles Times Food Bowl 2018 charitable partners are L.A. Kitchen, Food Forward and Midnight Mission.

Chef Jose Andres serving meals in Puerto Rico

The Power of Food: An Evening with Jose Andrès & Friends (May 1, The Wiltern Theater)

Last year, it was Massimo Bottura who came to talk about his Refettorio Ambrosiano and how to showcase and recycle “food” that otherwise would be thrown away. This year, we will have another grand event again at the Wiltern Theater. The Power of Food—An Evening with Jose Andrès & Friends will feature LA Times food critic Jonathan Gold, actress Zoey Deschanel (who started The Farm Project with her husband Jacob Pechenik, an endeavor to help reconnect people to their food), Robert Egger (founder of L.A. Kitchen), Ron Finley aka The Gagsta Gardener, chef Nyesha Arrington, and Tim Kilcoyne for a conversation on the power of food and its impact in our communities, while showcasing rising sous chefs in a two-segment cook-off. Inspired by Jose’s relief efforts in Puerto Rico, each chef will be challenged to create a memorable dish out of everyday ingredients readily available in a disaster relief situation. It will be fun. Run to get your tickets.

WHERE: The Wiltern, 3790 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
WHEN: Tuesday, May 1, 2018, 7 p.m.

A Tutta Pizza – Pizza Fest (May 13, Hollywood Palladium)

Also not to be missed, on May 13, the historical … A Tutta Pizza – Pizza Fest at the Hollywood Palladium, where you can see, touch, watch, smell, but more important eat the best pizza in LA (and maybe of your life), prepared for you by pizzaioli and world-class pizza makers like special guest Enzo Coccia, flying all the way from Naples for the occasion, Tony Gemignani (top pizza thrower in the world), and Daniele Uditi of Pizzana here in Los Angeles (I had the pleasure of tasting both his dough and pizza!).

Plus, you will get to meet and listen to Jenn Harris (Deputy Food Editor, Los Angeles Times), Phil Rosenthal (producer and host, Somebody Feed Phil), Nancy Silverton (Pizzeria Mozza and Osteria Mozza), …and the ever present Jonathan Gold, all while watching various workshops such as The Authentic Italian Table Series, curated by the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce West.

Vendors include: Di Stefano Cheese with its local burrata and mozzarella, The Urban Oven, The Good Pizza, Urban Pie, Prova Pizza, Il Romanista (read our review here), VPN Verace Pizza Napoletana, Ambrogio 15, Olive Wood Pizza, Prime Pizza, DeSano, Ray’s and Stark, and finally dessert from Bulgarini Gelato.

WHERE: Hollywood Palladium, 6215 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles
WHEN: Sunday, May 13, 2018, 12-6:30 p.m.

From left to right: Mario Batali, Jonathan Gold, Massimo Bottura, and Dominique Crenn at the 2017 Food Bowl “Food for Soul” panel

“City of Gold” Screening and Q&A (May 21, The Wiltern Theater)

Speaking of Mr. Jonathan Gold, if you have not seen it, do not miss the screening of his movie City of Gold, a tour of Los Angeles through its food & neighborhoods, on May 21, always at The Wiltern. For me, the movie spoke volume on the true meaning of the American Dream and the people who really make the cloth of the American culture: its immigrants. To follow, a Q&A’s with critic Jonathan Gold curating a shortlist of food films around town.

WHERE: The Wiltern Theater, 3790 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
WHEN: Monday, May 21, 2018, 7 p.m.

The setup of one of Jim Devevan’s Outstanding in the Field dinners

And much more…

Last but not least, the LA Food Bowl will host landscape artist turned chef Jim Denevan, who has put on pop-up dinners in 15 countries and all 50 states with his Outstanding in the Field project. Think of Outstanding in the Field as a roving restaurant without walls, on beaches and leafy hilltops, bringing guests straight to the source, presenting seasonal, site-specific meals in the farms, gardens and groves where the food was raised and harvested.

RELATED: The Best Dishes from Eataly LA’s Restaurants

All month, tables will stretch across spectacular SoCal locations, starting with a seafood dinner on Manhattan Beach with Providence chef Michael Cimarusti (May 24). The Grand Park Night Market kicks off with a Filipino Feast featuring Food & Wine Best New Restaurant winner Lasa (May 16). Autonomy Farm is hosting an all-women’s chef event on May 27. Meanwhile, I’ve got my eye on dinner with Virgilio Martínez from Peru, ranked Number 4 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list (May 28).

I strongly encourage you to follow the LA Food Bowl via their social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter) to stay up to date on all the other events: educational chats, movies, panels, dinners, and experiences that you shouldn’t miss. For the calendar of events, please click here.

What else we need to say… Buon appetito!

In collaboration with The Wiltern Theater and Los Angeles Times. Thanks to Silvia Carluccio of The Wiltern / Live Nation for the assistance. Photos provided by Los Angeles Times. Cover photo by Ann Fishbein. All rights reserved.