Masters of Taste 2026 returns to grace the pitch of the Rose Bowl this April! After being postponed due to the Eaton and Palisades Fires last year, the (for legal purposes, my opinion only) best food event in Los Angeles brings people together to raise money for Union Station Homeless Services: a perfect allegory for the good that food can do.
Brett and Lucy Thompson, 2024’s host chefs, were an apropos pair to introduce this year’s hosts: “There aren’t that many husband and wife duos out there, and these two are the best!” Chefs Thomas and Vanessa Tilaka-Kalb are the owners of the Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant Agnes Restaurant & Cheesery, which quickly established itself as a Pasadena fixture.
The couple have built strong relationships with other food providers and restaurants, in efforts that include projects like the Pasadena Restaurant Coalition and many culinary collaborations with other chefs, cheeseries and restaurateurs. They’re serious about their commitment to their community; aside from being familiar faces at local charitable food events like Masters of Taste over the years, last January they provided and served meals for Eaton Fire survivors at the local Pasadena shelter and charity Friends in Deed.
Union Station Homeless Services’ current CEO Katie Hill joined the organization a month to the day before the Eaton Fire. While it is undoubtedly laudable that Union Station served more than 4,200 people just last year, it is also a sobering reminder that homelessness is not a distant fear but a real possibility for more and more people.
Union Station has been serving Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley area for years. Dominick Correy, Director of Community Engagement for the Rose Bowl and also a Union Station Board Member, shared that his involvement with Union Station was particularly personal.
“I know firsthand what service and good people can do,” he said.
Corey was introduced to Union Station at 11 or 12 years old, when his father lived in Union Station housing at Centennial Place in Pasadena. “It changed my dad’s life … it changed my life,” he affirmed.
But, as Hill noted, “Homelessness is becoming harder to solve — it’s reaching more people.” In just the past year, Union Station has served “people who have lost their homes in a fire; people who are working full-time, sometimes multiple jobs, but still can’t afford the rent; seniors on fixed incomes who are being priced out of communities they’ve lived in for decades.” The economic, political, and ecological challenges of the past several years have thrown the reality of Hill’s statement into sharp relief as more people find themselves closer to homelessness than ever.
Facing these challenges head-on, Hill revealed Union Station’s new three-year strategic plan to focus not only on providing access to long-term housing, but also on expanding job development and pathways, increasing food access and preventing homelessness outright. One way Union Station is tackling two of these issues at once is by building a commercial kitchen, which will not only help them provide greater food access but will also serve as a training site, helping people to earn their food safety certification and gain firsthand work experience in a commercial kitchen.
Most importantly, many of the restaurants participating in Masters of Taste have committed to hiring Union Station graduates. As Thomas and Vanessa noted, “We’re here (at Masters of Taste) to bridge the community.”
So if you want to support Union Station’s work and have a blast doing so, grab your tickets and mark your calendars for Sunday, April 19 for good food and an even better cause: mastersoftastela.com/tickets.
And in case you need a sneak peek to whet your appetite, don’t worry; I have some tidbits from the media preview to tempt you with.
Our host chefs brought the cheese to the top and bottom of the meal, starting us off with carnival cones stuffed with fried cheese curds and fried dill pickles with house-made dill ranch. Pasadena local Filipino grocery Chaaste Family Market brought classic favorites of pork lumpia and banana turon that had guests lining up in the Rose Bowl’s Court of Champions. Indonesian food truck Stop Bye Cafe served up hot, fresh curry dumplings, both beef and vegetarian, while nearby, LA-based beverage company HOPWTR proffered refreshing, non-alcoholic sparkling water with a hoppy and healthy twist. STK Steakhouse presented luxurious bites of bone marrow topped with a sprinkle of caviar, alongside crisp toast and microgreens.
For the main meal, chef Imran Khan of Fitoor served a crispy palak patta and okra chaat, topped with fried onion and pomegranate seeds on what looked to me like creme fraiche. I was pleasantly surprised by the hidden kick to this bite, which was nicely balanced with the sweet tartness of the pomegranate and the savoriness and crunch of the fried vegetables.
Next up, stracciatella with “a trio of sunflower”, as chef Frank Saporito from Wife & the Somm explained: their creamy house-made stracciatella was topped with a sunflower salsa macha and the stems and petal of the sunflower, and the accompanying cracker was made of sunflower flour. A sunny twist on a classic way to enjoy stracciatella.
For the third course, chef Hau Fu Lee represented San Gabriel Valley icon Lunasia with three of their most beloved dim sum: shrimp har gow, a pork xiao long bao and what arguably is the largest siu mai I have ever eaten. If you’ve ever had dim sum at Lunasia, you know that they never miss!
Chefs Jane and John Sungkamee celebrated their restaurant Emporium Thai’s 26th birthday recently, and their crab yellow curry clearly demonstrated that their eatery’s longevity is well-founded. A symphony of sweetness and heat, the succulent and sweet crab meat was matched by the spicy kick of chili, lemongrass and aromatics, all nestled atop a bed of soft white rice.
Our host chefs closed out the meal with maybe the best french toast I’ve ever had: a perfectly crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside saturated with a sweet strawberry coulis. The cheesy twist? Whipped goat cheese from Blakesville Creamery, which added dimension to the dish with tang, sweetness and a touch of vanilla bean.
If this taster wasn’t enticing enough, chefs Thomas and Vanessa revealed that this year’s end zone theme will be “The Field of Cheese,” bringing creamy and dreamy cheeses from 13 different cheesemakers from across the country. As they gleefully put it, “harnessing the power of cheese for good!” So, will I see you at the endzone on the 19th?
General admission begins at 4 p.m., and VIP entry is at 3 p.m. If you’re interested in snagging VIP tickets to Masters of Taste 2026, don’t wait! There are less than 100 left: mastersoftastela.com.