Our Past Events

San Diego, CA

BQFF Joined Del Mar Wine & Food Fest to create its own festival-within-a-festival at the Grand Tasting on the Del Mar Polo Fields, inviting over a dozen LGBTQIA+ restaurants, winemakers, and distillers from across the country to participate. The festival track stood under a 25' rainbow and welcomed over 6,000 attendees across two days.

Del Mar, CA

Closing out the Del Mar Wine & Food weekend, BQFF co-hosted a party with The San Diego Wave, the city's pro women's soccer team, at Nolita Hall in Little Italy, which featured foods and cocktails created by the players. Hosted by chef Tiffani Faison, who created dishes for the evening, the event also featured food created by Nolita Hall's executive chef and cocktails that included Fierce & Kind, who participated in BQFF's Del Mar track.

We were thrilled to be invited to participate in The Mockingbird Nashville's annual celebration of LGBTQIA+ restaurateurs cooking proud and living loud in the Deep South, "Supper of The Sensational Seven." The evening featured seven courses by Mystic Picnic's Zach VanNieuwenhuyza & Adam LaCLave, International Market's Arnold Myint, Star Maye, D’Andrews Bakery's David Andrews, The Mockingbird's Brian Riggenbach & Mikey Corona, Guerilla Bizkits' Zach & Alex, and Golden Pony's Sam Graham & Liz Komoromi

Nashville, TN

New York, NY

In collaboration with The James Beard Foundation, we celebrated Pride Month in New York City with an all-star chef team—Tiffani Faison, Elizabeth Falkner, Arnold Myint, and Eric See — paying tribute to pioneering queer chefs. Their menu applauded those that paved the way for queer chefs — from Florent Morellet of the famed Meat Packing District’s Florent to Thailand’s first transgender international supermodel turned street food vendor, Ornapa Krisapee “Ma.” We had a wonderful time honoring queer culinary heritage and its influence. Author and journalist John Birdsall spoke about the history of queer food, heard from our chefs about their own experiences of queer life in the kitchen, and tasted incredible queer-made wines while hearing more about their stories from sommelier Eric Fleming.

Boston, MA

Our first festival was a smashing success! Over a dozen out and proud chefs, brewers, and spirit makers from Boston and beyond served up a delicious array of bites and cocktails to over 400 guests. Hosted at High Street Place with Tiffani Faison, we welcomed and heard from Massachusetts Governor Maury Healey, Queer Food Conference founder Alex Ketchum, and John Birdsall, who had also spoken at the conference.

Our chefs, restaurants, and brands included Tiffani Faison with Tenderoni's & Bubble Bath, Kareem Queeman of Mr. Bake Sweets, Karen Akunowicz of Fox & The Knife & Bar Volpe, Tatiana Rosana of Para Maria, Rob Anderson of Canteen Provincetown, Michele Ragussis of Gedney Farm, pastry chef Rob Gonzalez, and bartender Esther Cho.

We celebrated the opening of chef Crista Luedkte's new restaurant, Road Trip, with a menu featuring four courses pulled from the globally inspired menu. It was a fun, whimsical, fresh, and inspired dinner hosted by chef Tiffani Faison and food writer Troy Johnson. The dessert course was a panna cotta topped with Solar Punk Farms' strawberry preserves, and founders Spencer Scott and Nick Shwanz spoke about the importance of regenerative farming and queer representation in agriculture. Also speaking that evening was Clark Wolf, Forbes Magazine contributor and host of the radio show "At The Table."

Guerneville, CA

West Hollywood, CA

A gorgeous five-course dinner served a queer culinary journey from the Caribbean to the South, then up through the Midwest. Featuring courses by Chef Kattttt, Rashida Holmes, Tiffani Faison, Catie Randazzo, and Ben Sidell. The evening was emceed by Miss Barbie-Q and featured a moving talk by Jason Rizzi, Senior Director of Development of The Williams Institute.

West Hollywood, CA

"A Very Queer Italian Dinner" was our first of two chefs' dinner events at Sal's Place, West Hollywood. The Provincetown, MA, institution opened its doors to us at its southern California wintertime home. Chefs Elizabeth Falkner, Gabe Bertaccini, and Leonard Goodloe prepared courses inspired by Sal's Italian cuisine. Future Gin and Coolhaus Ice Cream founders Natasha Case and Freya Estreller spoke about their stories of creating inclusive and public-facing queer companies in Los Angeles.

Our first event was a benefactor dinner and kickoff party to launch the Big Queer Food Fest. Held at the former Tommy's and Bouchon space in Beverly Hills, we seated 65 guests for a beautiful six-course dinner prepared by chefs Rashida Holmes, Elizabeth Falkner, Tiffani Faison, Nik Sharma, Jon Kung, and Crista Luedkte, with insightful and inspirational talks by author and journalist John Birdsall about the definition, history, and significance of queer food and The Williams Institue Executive Director, Brad Sears, about their organization's work on research, studies, and impact on policy work for the LGBTQIA+ community.

Beverly Hills, CA