The best restaurant and bar events in Los Angeles
Eat and drink your way across the city with our guide to the best restaurant and bar events in L.A.
Food festivals, tastings, pub crawls, curated dinners—we've got your week planned with the most drool-worthy events in town. Check out our list to find out what's going on at bars and restaurants across the city, where you can sample the best of what LA's culinary scene has to offer.
Hemings & Hercules Dinner at Hatchet Hall
Hundreds of diaries and other historical accounts detail the lives and even recipes of early Americans, but when it comes to some of the nation's first celebrity chefs, we're almost out of luck. Fortunately, Hatchet Hall hit the books to bring us an incredible dinner series on the subject: Hemings & Hercules, an eight-course ode to unsung heroes James Hemings and Hercules Caesar, chefs enslaved by presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, respectively. In celebration of Black History Month, Hatchet Hall's thoughtful glimpse into American cooking, slavery and these chefs' legacies returns this February, popping up inside of Hatchet Hall every Thursday night from February 6 to 27 with a menu featuring the likes of sweet potato with sorghum butter, ginger, peanuts and green onions; chicken roulade with Virginia ham, chestnuts, mushrooms and sherry; and beef-fat potatoes, tomato catsup. Each installation only offers 12 seats, so you'll probably want to reserve your spot ahead of time to travel back in time, plate by plate. Find more information on Hatchet Hall's Hemings & Hercules series here.
LA IPA Fest
Sure, IPAs can be a divisive beer—you either love or hate the hoppy pale ale—but if you’re a fan, mark February 29 down on your calendar, because that’s when the annual Los Angeles IPA Festival returns to Mohawk Bend. Now in its seventh year, the all-day fête celebrates the best India Pale Ales from across California with more than 60 beers on tap, including a few brewed exclusively for the festival, plus curated beer flights and a VIP tasting option. Attendees can stop by the Echo Park spot to sample craft IPAs from breweries near and far; past vendors include Arts District Brewing Company, King Harbor and Mumford Brewing, and you can keep your eye on the 2020 lineup here. For $5 per 8-ounce pour, you can drink a couple here, a couple there, then vote for your favorite, resulting in the people’s choice award and, of course, there'll be an industry panel determining a judges'-choice winner, too—which both get announced at 4pm. If all those IPAs make you hungry, soak 'em up with a limited (and vegan-friendly) menu from Mohawk Bend.