It’s rare that a food festival combines both breakout local chefs and remarkable…

Take a truly diverse food city and combine it with a passionate food writer and you get a stunning series of events focused on food close to home and far afield. It’s rare that a food festival combines both breakout local chefs and remarkable gustatory journeys abroad.

Jen Harris, the Los Angeles Times’ remarkably passionate food columnist has long been the visionary behind this festival. Her investment in great local chefs and desire to seek out others abroad with unique visions makes this gathering special.

The month-long festival—which takes place in September—includes an opening night reception, a series of night market-themed events and several group dining experiences at long tables at stunning beach venues. I had a chance to attend opening night and talk with Harris, who says that she launched the festival “as a way to celebrate food in LA.” It was sponsored by Singapore Airlines.

A New Look at Asian Food

Your classic, high-end restaurants have long been French-influenced and served international fare. As the Michelin Guide—and people’s ever-expanding palates—took a deep dive into Japan that started to change.

Harris sought out a number of surprising chefs in Asia, include a young Thai cook who got a Michelin star and a Singaporean chef who is fusing a number of traditional Asian cuisines into a fireball of a mixture. For the event, Harris said she wanted to “bring in these international chefs whose food you won’t get to try if you don’t visit their home countries.”

Perhaps the star of the evening was Malcolm Lee of Candlenut in Singapore whose focus on Peranakan food—according to Harris which is a mix of an intensely flavorful, Malay, Indonesian and Chinese ingredients and technique–is heavily based on his mother’s cooking. Singapore has long been known as a culinary mecca given the number of Asian cultures that converge in this city, as well as its numerous hawker’s markets.

The term Peranakan means “local born” in Malay, notes Harris in a story, and generally refers to the descendants of Chinese immigrants and local Malays who lived in the Malay Archipelago in the 15th century. Lee has since earned a Michelin star at one of his Singapore restaurants and a place on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants Asia list.

For Harris, all the culinary traditions wrapped up in Peranakan food remind her of the diversity of the LA food scene. She reminds me, which I already knew, that LA is home to the largest Armenian community outside of Armenia and one of the largest Korean communities outside of Korean. All well-noted, digested and enjoyed in my new culinary romance with a one of the largest cities in the U.S. that I knew nothing about until recently.

The best part, about the gathering, according to Kim Bueno, director of event production at the Los Angeles Times, is that is allows LA’s culinary traditions to interface with international chefs. Some of my favorite bites included the dim sum from chef Hau Fu Lee at Lunasia Dim Sum House: his soup dumplings were extraordinary.