A Parma Chef Is Cooking Dinner for 400 at a Hollywood Community Kitchen
On Tuesday, November 17, a chef from the Parma countryside will work a dinner service in Hollywood, cooking roughly 400 meals for unhoused and food-insecure Angelenos. Service starts at 5:30 p.m.
He is not here to open a restaurant.
The Dinner
Enrico Bergonzi will cook alongside Hollywood Food Coalition chef Collin Leaver at the nonprofit's kitchen at 5939 Hollywood Boulevard. De Cecco and Parmigiano Reggiano are named as brand partners supplying the meal. Volunteers are welcome, and the coalition takes signups at hofoco.org/volunteer.
The coalition's listed service window is 5:30 to 7 p.m., seven nights a week, which is the schedule Bergonzi is stepping into rather than an event built around him.
Who Enrico Bergonzi Is
Bergonzi is president of the Consorzio Parma Quality Restaurants, a group of restaurants in and around Parma organized to promote the region's cooking. His family runs Al Vèdel in Vedole, a hamlet of Colorno just outside Parma, which holds a listing in the Michelin Guide. The family traces the restaurant and its attached salumificio, Podere Cadassa, to 1780.
For a city with as much Italian cooking as Los Angeles has, a working chef from Emilia-Romagna arriving to cook for the Hollywood Food Coalition instead of a pop-up at a Beverly Hills hotel is the more interesting version of the story.
Why He Is Here
Bergonzi is traveling with Verdi OFF, an Italian arts movement making its United States debut in Los Angeles this month. Teatro Regio di Parma launched it in Parma in 2016 as a free, open-to-all counterpart to its annual Festival Verdi, built on the premise that the art should leave the opera house and go to the piazzas, schools and neighborhoods. It is now partnering with the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce West on a three-year Los Angeles residency, and 2026 is year one.
Local nonprofit partners for the first installment are Education Through Music-Los Angeles, the Hollywood Food Coalition, El Centro del Pueblo, Pasadena Civic Ballet and Hollywood Ballet.
The Other Dinners, and Who Can Get In
Three more meals sit on the calendar, and most of them are closed rooms. Worth knowing before you try to get a table.
Sunday, November 15. Bergonzi cooks a Parma-inspired dinner at the eighth annual Italian Excellence Gala and Awards at the Taglyan Complex, 1201 Vine Street. Black tie, ticketed through the chamber.
Monday, November 16. The Week of Italian Cuisine in the World opens at the Italian Cultural Institute, 1023 Hilgard Avenue, led by the Consulate General of Italy. Attendance is by invitation only, though the chamber says travel media and travel professionals can ask about availability.
Friday, November 20. Contemporary artist Fidia Falaschetti hosts the Verdi OFF delegation at his Los Angeles studio for an edition of FEED YA, his art-and-food series, with home-style cooking from Italy's Marche region. Invitation only.
A free youth arts lab at El Centro del Pueblo in Echo Park on Wednesday, November 18 is reserved for young people already in the nonprofit's programs.
What the Public Can Actually Attend
The free part is on the street. Verdi OFF is staging pop-up performances at four Los Angeles landmarks across the closing weekend, and the organizers are deliberately not saying in advance what will happen at each one.
Saturday, November 21, 1 p.m. Venice Beach Skatepark, on the Venice Boardwalk
Saturday, November 21, 2 p.m. Santa Monica Pier
Sunday, November 22, 1 p.m. Hollywood Walk of Fame
Sunday, November 22, 2 p.m. Lake Hollywood Park
The performers include former Teatro alla Scala prima ballerina Petra Conti and La Scala principal dancer Eris Nezha, who co-founded Hollywood Ballet and are serving as youth mentors and choreographers for the residency.
If You Want to Help
The Hollywood Food Coalition is at 5939 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90028. Volunteer information is at hofoco.org/volunteer. For more LA restaurant news, and our running list of new restaurants in Los Angeles, keep reading.
Sourcing
Event dates, venues, partner organizations, the meal count and the quotes come from a press release issued on behalf of the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce West and Teatro Regio di Parma, dated October 30, 2026, provided to Food Journal Magazine. The Hollywood Food Coalition address and nightly service hours were taken from its Google Business Profile. Al Vèdel's Michelin Guide listing was confirmed on the guide's own site, and the 1780 date applies to the restaurant and its attached salumificio together, per Visit Emilia. Enrico Bergonzi's presidency of the Consorzio Parma Quality Restaurants was confirmed through the consortium's site and reporting in ParmaToday and ParmaDaily. Food Journal Magazine has not attended any Verdi OFF LA event. Checked November 2, 2026.
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