L.A. Times Food Bowl 2026: A Night at the 101 Best Restaurants Reveal
Every Los Angeles household has a restaurant list. Some of us have several: saved posts, bookmarked reviews, recommendations exchanged over Saturday afternoon tea. We are excellent at collecting places to eat.
Getting to them requires a separate skill set.
In our house, there are reservations to secure, calendars to reconcile, and a drive from the South Bay that can turn dinner into an expedition. Meanwhile, another glowing review appears. The list grows.
L.A. Times Food Bowl offers a tempting shortcut. For one evening, restaurants come to you, serving small tastes of the food that makes this city so rewarding to explore. At Friday’s October 23 kickoff at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, there was another draw: Food Bowl’s first live reveal of the Times’ 101 Best Restaurants in L.A.
My husband, Puneet, arrived ready for the full spread. As a vegetarian—and a fairly particular one—I arrived with questions about ingredients. Both of us had a very good evening.
Small Bites, Big Introductions
Restaurant counters extended through the hangar and outdoors, sending guests back and forth in pursuit of the next promising plate. Anajak Thai and Badmaash were favorite stops outside; Dunsmoor’s albacore, Holbox's sushi and Saffy’s scallops with green chutney also drew appreciative reviews from our group.
Most servings disappeared in a bite or two, but there was plenty to watch before that happened. Teams assembled tiny plates, added finishing touches, and passed them forward in a steady rhythm. Anyone curious about restaurant kitchens could linger over the choreography usually hidden behind a swinging door.
Komal had an unfair advantage: we share a name. Its vegetarian offering supplied a more useful reason to visit the restaurant. A little cheese bite at Pasjoli was another welcome discovery, while gelato, brownies, and Funke’s sesame cookies and pistachio biscotti made dessert a recurring appointment.
Then Evan Funke himself appeared nearby. As an admirer of his restaurants, I was delighted. Apparently, some of us save our fangirl energy for the people responsible for dinner.
Cocktails and nonalcoholic drinks offered further detours, including tasty pours from Natalie’s. Displays invited a closer look, and one activation rewarded a photo shared on social media with a packet of ramen.
The DJ was fantastic. Between the food, the music, and everyone’s good mood, it was an easy evening to enjoy.
We entered with general admission tickets at 7 p.m.; the line moved quickly, and the indoor-outdoor layout encouraged wandering. A few counters ran out of food about an hour into general admission, leaving some hoped-for tastings out of reach. That made the hospitality of teams who kept serving throughout the evening especially appreciated.
A Countdown Worth Gathering For
As L.A. Times restaurant critics Bill Addison and Jenn Harris took the stage, attention shifted from the counters to the countdown. The final ten unfolded more slowly, giving each announcement its moment.
The 2026 No. 1 spot went to Lielle, the new restaurant from Swedish chef Marcus Jernmark. His humble response was a lovely counterpoint to the excitement in the crowd.
Some of the best scenes were away from the microphone. Chefs had stepped out from behind their counters, still in their chef attire, to watch. Names were met with cheers. A woman beside us jumped up and hugged the people in her group.
For diners, a ranking can help settle where to book. Standing among the restaurant teams, you could see what recognition meant to the people doing the work.
There was something generous about the celebration, too. Even in a business as competitive as restaurants, people were cheering for their peers as well as their own teams. When the honorees gathered onstage for a group photograph, kitchens encountered separately throughout the evening became a community in one frame.
Sierra Aversano/L.A. Times Food Bowl Sierra Aversano/L.A. Times Food Bowl
Bring Your Curiosity, Whatever You Eat
Vegetarian? Don’t let that keep you away.
The tasting choices were narrower, certainly. But curiosity doesn’t stop where your diet does. There were ingredients to ask about, techniques to watch, and dishes worth admiring even when they weren’t destined for our plates. My eyes sparkled plenty.
Food Bowl also made visible the affection surrounding food: the care taken over a tiny serving, the pleasure of handing it to someone, the satisfaction when they loved it. That same feeling carried into the crowd celebrating in front of the stage.
Few introductions to Los Angeles reveal so much about who lives here, what they have brought with them, and how those traditions continue to grow. Moving between the counters offered a small, delicious education in the city—and an appreciation for parts of its food culture that some of us may never taste ourselves.
We took home the first-edition 101 restaurant guide, so the list-making will undoubtedly continue. But for once, we had spent an evening enjoying what Los Angeles has to offer instead of discussing where we should go.
