A New Food and Wine Festival Takes Over Ojai Valley With Celebrity Chefs This Fall

A new food and wine festival is coming to bustling Ojai this fall, running October 26 to October 29 at the Ojai Valley Inn. The multi-day Ojai Food + Wine will feature a ton of food and wine personalities spread across multiple different activations and events, with a focus on products, wineries, and chefs from across California. Nancy Silverton, Evan Funke, Bobby Stuckey (Frasca Food & Wine), Dominique Crenn, Christopher Kostow, Jon Yao, and Matthew Kammerer are just a few of the many names stated for the food festival, which will include wine tastings, culinary demonstrations, a charity lunch with Alice Waters, and a collaboration dinner with all three-Michelin-starred chefs Kostow (the Restaurant at Meadowood, Charter Oak), Crenn (Atelier Crenn), and William Bradley of San Diego’s Addison. Packages for those staying at the Ojai Valley Inn itself won’t be cheap, with the prices ranging from $3,950 to $9,500 for the multi-day experience. Package sales begin on March 1.

A scary fire in Inglewood

Standout Cajun and soul food restaurant A Family Affair, which serves some of the Inglewood area’s best oxtails, fried catfish, and peach cobbler, is closed indefinitely following an electrical fire. The Southern food specialist was almost completely destroyed over the weekend, with social media video from the interior of the space showing charred cooking equipment, blackened walls, and more untold damage beneath the ashes. “We love what we do and have faith that we will be able to make memories and continue feeding your souls,” ownership says in a social media post from Monday, February 20, while asking for donations to help pay staff during the downtime via GoFundMe totaling $15,000.

Two Brentwood arrivals

Santa Monica restaurant Rosti Tuscan Kitchen has moved into a new space at 11740 San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood, reports Toddrickallen. The ground floor location, which formerly housed La Scala, sits just beneath the neighborhood’s famous Chin Chin.

Culver City’s Irish bar and restaurant the Auld Fella is on the move too, adding a second forthcoming location to Brentwood as well. The casual neighborhood hangout takes over at the former Bru Haus space at 11831 Wilshire Boulevard, with ABC signage already up.

A loss of life and license

Santa Ana’s Culichi Town has been handed an indefinite suspension of its alcohol-serving license, reports the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control board. The restaurant was found to have served alcohol to six underage persons back in November 2021, and those people were subsequently involved in a fatal car crash that killed one passenger and injured five others.

A new breakfast taco contender

Don’t look now but Loqui, the multi-unit taqueria known for having some of LA’s best flour tortillas, is launching breakfast. The Arts District location begins selling steak and egg, chorizo and egg, or nopales and egg tacos this week, starting at 8 a.m.