Overview L.A. Times Custom Culinary Events are private food events the Times builds to one sponsor's brief, with chefs drawn from the paper's relationships in Los Angeles and abroad, and they run from an intimate tasting overlooking the Los Angeles skyline to a beachfront long-table dinner for hundreds. They run year-round at venues picked for each event, for up to 500 guests. The same food team publishes the annual 101 Best Restaurants in L.A. list, built by James Beard Award-winning critic Bill Addison, and puts on Food Bowl, the paper's culinary festival, which started in 2017. Brand presence Each event is built around a single sponsor: its brand, its customers and its prospects make up the room, and the Times matches the chef and the venue to the brief. The Times points to a custom event for Tourism Australia as a recent example of the format. The format sits beside the paper's public food nights, the 101 Best Restaurants party and Food Bowl's grand tastings, where restaurants from the list cook side by side for ticket holders.