On Saturday night, Charli XCX performed 2024's hottest album, with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont talking to young Clayro fans, and about 300 people were eating frog legs and beef tongues in the belting VIP rose garden at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California.
The sold-out dinner at Field, a roving restaurant known for its white table cloth meals in unexpected places, has become one of Coachella's more flashy options. It is the 10th year of the group at the festival and is expected to host around 1,800 guests over the two weekends of the festival.
“Most people are waiting for a schedule to come up to see who's in the show's lineup. 'Well, who's the chef's lineup?' said Diane Lees, a frequent attendee who retired from her financial career and described her lifestyle as nomadic.
At a hot, dusty desert festival, temperatures regularly break 100 degrees, making it easy to wait just for a day with 125,000 other attendees and transportation and bathroom lines. An excellent dinner at the field dinner offers a rare opportunity for cold drinks, comfortable chairs and friendly strangers.
A family-style four-course dinner is held from 6pm to 8:30pm and is served each night by a variety of chefs. Each seat costs $350. This is an expensive price after purchasing an expensive festival pass that starts at around $600 for general admission and $1,200 for VIP access. However, dinner tickets also have access to general admissions to the VIP section of the day, including air-conditioned toilets such as Kazunori, a chain of Los Angeles' popular handroll bars, and special food vendors.
“I'm solo. I thought it was a great opportunity to meet other people, enjoy myself and get some delicious food,” said Sarah Macramb, 40, who traveled from Seattle.
All seats at the table were set with discrepant colorful and ornate plates, complementing roses grown in lush gardens. Participants sipped gin and grapefruit cocktails and found a place to hunt in the evening.
Saturday's dinner is known for hosting a estrano pasta pop-up on the streets with Los Angeles-based Shego chef Diego Argoti hosting an Estrano pasta pop-up and creating Poltergeist, a popular restaurant within the (now closed) Echo Park Arcade. His staff includes a quirky mix of chefs Buzzy Local, like Carlos Jaquez running a pop-up called Birria Pa La Cruda and Danny Rodriguez, head chef at Butchr Bar at Echo Park.
“My mother is cooking with us,” Argoti said earlier in the day, wearing four thick braids and a slightly sparkling sparkle at each temple. “We came to Coachella together when we were 14 and sneaked into anger towards the machine.”
A popular reputation for creating chaotic yet delicious dishes, Argoti's menu included a frog leg salad at Endive, duck confit with hibiscus tomb and a beef tongue served with strawberry pattanesca and pandan-flavored mochi cake. Each course came with a wine pairing or a non-alcoholic alternative.
“I almost created it, like a vanity cooking escape room,” he said. “It's okay, cool, you paid this amount for this experience. Beautiful. But now we feed frog feet, gravel, and something extravagant for me.”
Mr. Argoti's menu naturally left some diners a bit careless, as guests couldn't see what was being served before they arrived for dinner. After the first course was offered, a small number of people left. (One woman said the salad was very good, but she didn't want to try the frog's feet.)
However, many attendees said they were pleased with the unpredictable yet communal nature of the dinner. The dinner, held in a well-kept garden hidden next to the Mohab tent, comes with a list of local providers who serve vegetables, meat and wine pairings each night. When people dined on Saturday, David Lecky, a farmer from Thermal, California, who grew many of the ingredients for the salad that night, walked through the greenery and blossomed on their plates.
“If you're a noisy person, it's going to be difficult to try food,” said 27-year-old Lerna Gwett.
Gwett, an electrician in Washington, DC, arrived with her younger sister Mata and one of her friends. By the end of the night, the three of them were chatting with people sitting nearby, adorning new friends with roll-on body glitter.
“This is what stands out on the field,” Gwett said as he finished his wine glasses.
Jim Denevan, the artist who founded Outstandy on the field, believes dinner will act as a “social glue,” but for another important reason he was invited to Coachella in 2014, he said the festival needs more culinary choices.
“At that point, there were limited options at the music festival: burritos, hot dogs, burgers, tacos,” said Nick Adler, Vice President of Festivals at Golden Voice. “Quick food, that was it. There's no brands, no restaurants, no very common signs.”
Currently, Coachella has over 75 food vendors, including the $350 Nobu Omakase experience and $20 burgers, sandwiches and basket loaded fries.
“To do their crafts to these expensive chefs, and to the local farm ingredients that farmers here walk along the tables, cost more than a slice of pizza,” said Denevan, 63.
And dozens of people left early for dinner to catch the end or start of various performances, including Charli XCX and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, but about half of the long table remained to continue chatting with the tablemates after dessert.
“How many people are here, you say, 'I bumped into you' or 'I'm sorry' and you haven't had a conversation beyond either of them,” said Jonathan Waddell, who had dinner with his wife, Sarah Sue Waddell. “That's why it's good to have a conversation here.”
Waddell, 46, and Waddell, 45, traveled to the festival from Santa Barbara to celebrate their 21st anniversary. They described the sit-in meal as a welcome break from the intense heat.
“It's always fun to be there, but this is a really great rest,” Waddell added. “Now we're ready for the party.”
“That means she's going to see the show and the act, then she'll leave here and go out early and go to bed,” Waddell added.
Anna Wood, 52, attended dinner with her partner Glenn Mason on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. The couple has come to Coachella from York, England for the past three years, and dinner is usually part of the itinerary.
“We met a couple here for the first time from Palm Springs,” said Mason, 63. “We kept in touch with them and saw them every time we came to Coachella.”
As veterans, they have also become quite good at shaking the inevitable sense of festival FOMO.
“It always needs to be balanced,” Mason said. “We sometimes miss the people we want to see, but there are probably many more benefits to eating a delicious dinner with delicious wine.”
“Charli XCX we would have actually wanted to see it tonight,” he added.
