Wes Anderson, Suzanne Goin, and Caroline Styne styles all came together at the Hollywood Bowl July 10. Here’s what the Supper In Your Seats program delivered; and why you should order ahead.
On Friday night July 10, the L.A. Phil staged the first of three night consecutive tributes to the films of Wes Anderson: Bill Murray as host, Beck and Karen O and Jackson Browne on the billboard, the taiko drums of “Isle of Dogs” threatening the Bowl’s speaker system before the night was done.
We were in a Promenade Box excited to enjoy dinner from Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne.
Hollywood Bowl Food + Wine is now in its eleventh year under Goin and Styne; chef and restaurateur respectively, both James Beard Foundation award winners, both responsible for shaping what serious eating has looked like in Los Angeles since they opened Lucques together in 1998.
The Supper In Your Seats program, available for Terrace and Garden Box holders who order a day in advance, is the clearest expression of what eleven years of institutional commitment to a venue actually produces.
Wes Anderson and the Case for a Soundtrack-First Cinema
Before the food, let’s talk about the show, because understanding what Anderson does with music is the only way to understand why the L.A. Phil’s tribute worked as well as it did.
Anderson does not use music to underscore emotion. He uses it to create it. The cassette tape Jason Schwartzman pulled from his pocket mid-show made this plain: Anderson had played Schwartzman the entire “Rushmore” soundtrack in his car before a frame was shot, narrating the film through the songs in sequence.
The music wasn’t added to “Rushmore” in post-production. The film was built around it: a compositional approach that separates Anderson from virtually every other working director of his generation.
Musical director Justin Meldal-Johnsen, leading a band of session veterans including Roger Joseph Manning Jr., Jason Falkner, Joey Waronker, and Gus Seyffert, had the task of arranging nearly three decades of that approach into a single evening. They got through it: from “Bottle Rocket” deep cuts to the present, without a seam showing.
The L.A. Phil took a restrained, precise role: Alexandre Desplat’s “Canto at Gabelmeister’s Peak” from “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” Mark Mothersbaugh’s “Ping Island” from “The Life Aquatic,” slivers of score that landed and got out of the way. The guest vocalists were where the night found its texture.
Jackson Browne performing “Fairest of the Seasons” and “These Days”, songs he wrote as a teenager, later covered by Nico, then immortalized in “The Royal Tenenbaums”, was a genuine event: a songwriter finally getting around to his own songs, fifty-something years after writing them. Beck covered Elliott Smith’s “Needle in the Hay”, a song so specific to its Anderson moment that any other context collapses under its weight.
Karen O simmered through the Rolling Stones’ “Play With Fire.” Karen Elson covered Françoise Hardy’s “Les Temps De L’amour” from “Moonrise Kingdom” with the kind of restraint the song requires. Bill Murray struck a $9 desk bell, sourced at Anderson’s specific request, possibly from a Staples hours before showtime, during the final number, with Beck imploring the sound crew to make sure it was audible through the PA. It was. Murray committed.
Anderson himself appeared briefly onstage.
Check Out The Gourmet Dinner Suzanne Goin Sent to Our Box
There are several food options, more than four pages of deliciousness from ala carte, to 3 course dinner, to feasts.
Our Supper In Your Seats menu was three courses, pre-ordered through hollywoodbowl.com/food+wine which needs to be sent at least one day before your show. It arrives at your box before the performance.
What follows is what arrived at ours.
The first course opened with an arugula salad: stone fruit, Spanish goat cheese, honey, Marcona almonds. The goat cheese carried enough sharpness to cut through the honey without a fight. The stone fruit was at peak summer ripeness: not performing ripeness, actually there. The Marcona almonds added density where the arugula’s bitterness needed ballast. This is a composed salad built on the understanding that each component has a job, and that none of them should be doing someone else’s. It does that job well.
The charcuterie and artisanal cheese course arrived with olives, dried fruit, and grilled sourdough. The sourdough was grilled, char on the underside, structural enough to hold against the cheese without going slack. At a venue serving thousands of guests a night across multiple dining formats, the attention to detail is noticed, appreciated and carries through to a high-level date night
Goin has four James Beard awards and Styne has one for Outstanding Restaurateur and they bring the highest quality to their Hollywood Bowl experience.
In the box next to us was an upscale party of 6. Twice during our meal they stretched over to ask what we were eating. It looked that good.
The Alaskan halibut with crab fideos was the more technically demanding main, and the right choice if you want to understand what this program is actually doing.
Fideos — short, toasted pasta — absorb flavor differently than standard pasta: denser, nuttier, with a texture that holds against a braise without going slack. The roasted cherry tomatoes had concentrated down to something closer to a condiment than a garnish. The aïoli bound the whole thing without announcing itself. Nothing in the dish competed for attention. That kind of restraint is harder to execute than it looks, particularly at volume. Cheering on the kitchen staff for their craftmanship.
The grilled beef tenderloin with potato-mahon gratin, broccoli, and Calabrian chile-olive salsa was the bolder plate. Mahón, a Menorcan cow’s milk cheese with a mild tang and a buttery finish, melts into potato without taking it over.
The Calabrian chile-olive salsa landed at exactly the right register: heat present, not aggressive, the brininess of the olives keeping the chile from reading as simple spice. This is food that has been thought through by someone who has spent decades thinking about food. It does not taste assembled. It tastes decided.
Dessert: the ricotta cheesecake with summer strawberries, mint, and graham cracker crust was the lighter call; ricotta keeping the texture open rather than dense, the mint doing real work rather than decorative work, the strawberries at the kind of summer peak that makes you wonder why you ever eat strawberries in February.
The bittersweet chocolate torta with vanilla whip and cookie crumble was the richer option and correct if that’s the direction you want to go at the end of a summer night. Deep cocoa, the vanilla whip calibrated to cut the weight rather than add to it, the cookie crumble providing texture without excess.
Our server Cy suggested we wait until intermission to order dessert. We didn’t. We ordered it then and there; and it was our mistake. It melted fast.
Our box mates did wait, and it was a better idea.
Anderson’s film universe has always been about finding the melancholy inside the beautiful. Goin’s desserts, it turns out, operate on a similar frequency — specific, considered, not trying too hard.
• cornbread and rolls • tomato and watermelon salad • coleslaw • long-cooked greens, magpies’ bananas foster soft serve pie (2/ vg, nuts)
Our box mates ordered the BBQ IN YOUR BOX FOR TWO: sweet tea-brined fried chicken, st. louis-style pork ribs, braised beef brisket, cornbread and rolls, tomato and watermelon salad, coleslaw, long-cooked greens, magpies’ bananas foster soft serve pie.
The next time we go, we’ll likely get the SURF & TURF 32 oz tomahawk steak • butter-poached lobster • classic iceberg wedge: tomato, bacon, blue cheese & buttermilk • roasted fingerlings • young broccoli • onion rings • old school chocolate layer cake & vanilla whip.
The SURF & TURF is incredibly popular and looks amazing. Literally, a table just a few rows over cheered when their plates were delivered.
Cy was our server throughout the night and the closest thing to a real-life super hero I’ve met in a while. He explained that this is his 9th season as a server and how much he loves the magic of The Bowl. Is it easy to become a server there? Not at all. And for 2 reasons: First, none of the servers leave the job, as people stay for decades. Second, the only way to get the job is to be referred by someone who currently has the job.
Cy worked hard, running laps around the area, tackling the stairs, carrying platters, while being incredibly polite, friendly, knowledgable. The next time you go, ask for Cy and I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Caroline Styne and the Wine Program
The beverage program at Hollywood Bowl Food + Wine reflects the same curatorial instinct Styne brings to her restaurant work: an impressive selection that serves the food and the setting. A summer night at the Bowl under open sky, with music moving through the air, is a specific context. The wine should know where it is. Styne’s program does that brilliantly.
Why the Supper In Your Seats Program Is Worth Understanding
Executive Chef Erik Lopez oversees the full operational scope of Hollywood Bowl Food + Wine — three full-service restaurants, three marketplaces, and the in-seat dining programs that serve thousands of guests on any given summer night. The Supper In Your Seats program is one thread of that, and the most direct way to experience what Goin and Styne have built here over eleven years.
The mechanics are simple: Terrace and Garden Box holders order through hollywoodbowl.com/food+wine at least one day before their show.
The meal arrives at the box before the performance begins. You do not leave your seat. You do not negotiate a restaurant reservation around a curtain time. You sit down, the food comes, and then Wes Anderson’s entire cinematic universe plays out in music around you while you eat halibut over crab fideos and wonder why you ever did it any other way.
Goin and Styne have been building the Hollywood Bowl Food + Wine program for eleven consecutive years. That kind of institutional continuity at a major cultural venue is unusual. Their artistry, professional and mastery of flavor pairing shows on the plate.
Suzanne Goin cooking and Caroline Styne curating, applied to one of the most distinctive outdoor venue experiences in the country. The combination: Anderson’s music, Goin’s food, Styne’s wine, Murray’s desk bell, is not something you plan for. It is something you order ahead for.
FAQ
What is the Supper In Your Seats program at the Hollywood Bowl?
Supper In Your Seats is a pre-ordered, in-seat dining experience available to Terrace and Garden Box holders at the Hollywood Bowl. Guests order at least one day in advance through hollywoodbowl.com/food+wine, and the meal is delivered to their box before the performance begins. The 2026 summer menu was created by chef Suzanne Goin and restaurateur Caroline Styne as part of the Hollywood Bowl Food + Wine program, now in its eleventh year.
Who are Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne?
Suzanne Goin is a four-time James Beard Foundation award-winning chef who co-founded Lucques in Los Angeles in 1998 alongside restaurateur Caroline Styne, a Beard Foundation winner for Outstanding Restaurateur. Together they have led the Hollywood Bowl Food + Wine culinary program for eleven consecutive years, overseeing dining across three full-service restaurants, three marketplaces, and the in-seat dining program. Executive Chef Erik Lopez manages daily operations across the full venue.
How do you order Supper In Your Seats at the Hollywood Bowl?
Orders are placed through hollywoodbowl.com/food+wine at least one day before your show date. The program is available for Terrace and Garden Box seating. The three-course summer 2026 menu includes options across all courses and is delivered to your box before the performance.
The Hollywood Bowl Food + Wine summer 2026 season runs through the end of the outdoor concert season. Supper In Your Seats orders open daily at hollywoodbowl.com/food+wine — place yours the day before your show. The food is worth the planning. So is the show.
