Celebrity Chef Speakers Bureau Los Angeles is a division of Celebrity Chef Network dedicated to assisting clients interested in booking celebrity chefs in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas.
Ah, the City of Angels. Here’s a land full of dreamers, creators, and abundant sunshine. Long has L.A. been the beacon of hope, of reinvention for starry-eyed actors, writers, directors, and everything in between. Today, L.A.’s even more than Hollywood types—the city’s experiencing an exciting new food movement. You’ve probably noticed! These days it seems everyone’s talking about Los Angeles’ top celebrity chefs and cuisine; GQ, Eater, Food+Wine, and even the New York Times have profiled L.A. as America’s trendy food Mecca. Celebrity Chef Speakers Bureau Los Angeles is your new go-to celebrity chef agency to hire a chef for events on the West Coast.
Why L.A.? And who’s making waves there, anyway? As food undergoes a bit of a revolution, with people eating out more than ever, celebrity chefs are changing their game, as well. L.A. is at the helm of all that change. Booking a celebrity chef from L.A. brings all that food innovation engineering, right to your audience, making them all the more popular. Read on to learn about L.A.’s food scene, and the biggest Angelino celebrity chefs.
The Los Angeles Vibe:
When you think L.A., you probably think about Hollywood, surfing, hippies, and hipsters. Those stereotypes are all there—and more. The thing about Los Angeles is that has great diversity. The next continent over is Asia, so there’s a lot of influence from there, as well as from its nearby Mexico neighbor. A lot of second and third generation Americans find themselves in L.A., so the food reflects that mix, but in an inventive way. It’s not just Vietnamese, it’s an updated, American style of it, because that’s who’s making the dish.
So Antonia Lofaso’s Venice restaurant, Scopa, isn’t just Italian, like her heritage, it’s modern, trendy Italian. Jose Andres’ chic Beverly Hills eatery Bazaar features sophisticated Spanish cuisine. If you head to n/naka, Niki Nakayama’s popular restaurant, you’ll find that though this is a traditional kaiseki restaurant, it’s fine dining, and slowly Nakayama has been subbing Japanese ingredients for local California ones.
L.A.’s a casual city. You can wear jeans to a fancy restaurant, although fancy has a different definition here – it’s upscale, maybe, but not dressy (even if diners are well-dressed casual). That translates to the food, too. One of the best restaurants in L.A., and let’s go ahead and say the country, is Nancy Silverton’s La Brea Bakery. Featured on Chef’s Table (like Nakayama), Silverton showed her tenacity at creating the perfect bread. Her restaurant, then, serves great pizza. Not exactly what you’d expect from a world-class dining establishment, but that’s exactly why Los Angeles is perfect for a chef like Silverton.
Coastal Heaven:
The weather in Los Angeles is so heavenly, there’s really no other place that competes. With low rainfall, little humidity, abundant sunshine, and a usual hover around 75 degrees all year, it’s a dream. And we haven’t even talked about the ocean or the mountains.
This geographic utopia matters not just because it’s a pleasant place to live, although people do move here for that reason, but for chefs, it dictates what they can cook. The fish is fresh because it’s a coastal city and the menu is caught daily. Fruit trees abound, and gardens are always lush, which means that you can have fresh fruit and beautiful produce all year. Farming in California is ideal, so fresh tomatoes and avocados are available in February, whereas everyone else is dealing with root vegetables. Strawberries make regular menu appearances year round.
Restaurants often have outdoor gardens where they can grow herbs, veggies, and leafy greens. Everything is healthy, so the food is, too. That appeals to chefs like Matthew Kenney whose Plant Food+Wine in Venice features a delicious plant-based menu. Wolfgang Puck’s Spago was revolutionary for him because it was in California where he discovered produce. Clearly, that worked out for him, he’s one of the world’s biggest chefs.
Prime Real Estate:
New York City has long been considered the culinary center of the U.S. The trouble with New York is the real estate, not to mention you’re bound to a seasonal menu or high shipping rates. Everything in New York is tight and old, which doesn’t make for great cooking conditions. Also, despite its size, New York is expensive – very. Even more expensive is San Francisco, the other culinary flame of the nation.
In Los Angeles, there’s abundant, affordable space. It’s a city made up of sprawl, it bleeds out while New York shoots up. And so the restaurants have a luxurious amount of space. Chefs can really cook in their kitchens, and they can serve more people, too. Celebrity chef Michael Voltaggio runs the popular restaurant ink. in Malibu but he’s moving locations because he’s outgrown his venue. At the La Cienega locations, Voltaggio can not only expand his staff and serve more people, but he’s talking about making the menu more casual, too.
Ocean dining is a pretty fabulous thing, and mega star Brooke Williamson knows all about that. The Top Chef winner has a number of establishments, but the Playa Provisions is the most unique. It’s a big space just a block from the beach comprised of four restaurants in one location, a nationwide fad. The ability to acquire enough space, and by the water no less, is an amazing element L.A. offers. All Williamson’s restaurants are in the coastal areas.
Los Angeles is Nothing New:
The thing about L.A. is that it’s not a small city on the rise, it’s the nation’s second largest metropolis. Everyone knows L.A. Which is to say, there’s talent everywhere, so chefs don’t have to worry about finding people to work in the kitchen – and anyway, every struggling actor finds him or herself working in a restaurant at some point, so there’s certainly no shortage of professional wait staff.
Which is to say, it’s not like the food scene was ever lacking in L.A. Wolfgang Puck started there, and Suzanne Tracht’s Jar is a sturdy mainstay. When Curtis Stone moved from London, he opened his first solo restaurant, Maude in 2014, followed by Gwen in 2016, which are some of the best dining experiences in the city.
Contact us today to line up incredible celebrity chef speakers from Los Angeles!
In L.A. we have many incredible celebrity chefs for hire on our roster. When you hire a celebrity chef through our talent booking agents, you’ll get the full run down. We help you execute a flawless event, in a detailed, careful fashion. Together, we’ll go over costs and form a budget. We’ll also go over the event menu creation process. This is one of the most fun parts of working with a celebrity chef. Depending on the size of your event, we’ll help budget a cooking staff for the big day, along with a grocery budget for the chef to abide by.
Of course the venue matters as well. Get something with a great kitchen, and if you need to, it pays to spring for extra equipment. With our celebrity chef agents, you’ll discuss cooking requirements, prep time, serving schedules, and clean up. Finally, we’ll go over the most important item of all: booking a celebrity chef. Availability, their chef speaking fee, and their needs are all areas in which we can assist. Through Celebrity Speakers Bureau Los Angeles, we’ll make sure your event is a delicious, exciting experience for all involved!