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Food & Drink

5 of the Bay Area’s hottest pop-ups are heading to Outside Lands

Caviar, crawfish beignets, and choripánes dominate the festival’s ever-fancier food roster, with more than 95 restaurants represented.

People are gathered in line at a vibrant food stall with a yellow facade offering tacos. The background features colorful mural art, and a person is looking at the menu.
Outside Lands is as much a food festival as a music festival. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard

Two months after Outside Lands’ music lineup dropped, San Francisco’s biggest outdoor summer festival released its full list of food and beverage vendors Tuesday — and Golden Gate Park looks to be as stacked as ever.

Taste of the Bay Area, Outside Lands’ food program, features 95 Bay Area restaurants serving more than 800 dishes. In a change from years past, the Polo Field will be home to several of the city’s hottest pop-ups amid festival standbys like Señor Sisig, El Huarache Loco, and Woodhouse Fish Co. For the first time, attendees will be able to get a hot dog topped with kaluga caviar and pickled shallots from The Caviar Co.

An elegant spread of plated gourmet dishes, each artfully garnished, surrounds a candle. A variety of textures and colors create a visually appealing table setting.
Find Maz Naba's Cal-Labanese pop-up Ilna at Buddy on Sunday nights. | Source: Adahlia Cole for The Standard
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Apart from Instagram sensation Poorboy Coffee, they’re all hybrid concepts. Six-year-old Colombian-Texan fusion pop-up Mezclá Eats is bringing smoked brisket arepas and yuca fries with aji amarillo cheese sauce, while chef Maz Naba’s sophisticated California-Lebanese project Ilna will likely draw lines for kafta burger crunch wraps and five-spice duck fried rice. Oakland-based Peruvian-Eritrean mobile kitchen Michoz will be cranking out the South American sausage sandwiches known as choripánes, while cult-favorite Chino-Latino pop-up Tacos Sincero dishes out black-pepper beef tostadas and a spin on Korean rice cakes: mala mac ’n’ cheese ddukbboki.

Others making their festival debut come from more rarefied backgrounds. Nobu, the global empire whose nearest brick-and-mortar is in Palo Alto, will be dishing out mixed sashimi chirashi bowls, chicken katsu donburi, and rock-shrimp tempura. The Inner Sunset’s newest upscale French bistro, Caché, will have a booth for its ham-and-cheese buckwheat crepes, while the Tenderloin’s veteran New Orleans-style cafe Brenda’s French Soul Food will bring out the ever-popular crawfish beignets. Kajiken, a notable name from San Mateo’s thriving ramen scene, will be ladling up homura spicy pork aburasoba and megami vegan aburasoba, both likely to come in handy when the fog inevitably comes in.

A diverse group of people at a concert or event eagerly reach toward the stage. They are smiling, adorned with wristbands, and standing behind a metal barrier.
Outside Lands has a large footprint, and walking from one stage to another can make anyone hungry. | Source: Courtesy Alive Coverage

Several options — including Angler, A16, and Kaiyo — will be available only to people wearing VIP wristbands or those who shell out top dollar for entrance to the even-more-elite Golden Gate Club, where local celebrities like “Top Chef” star Melissa King will be cooking. For the rest of us, Beer Lands, Wine Lands, and Cocktail Magic will be present, as in years past, keeping the mood up during performances by Doja Cat, Doechii, and Tyler, the Creator.

Just like last year, there’s even an option to tie the knot. Couples who get hitched at the festival’s City Hall tent don’t merely get to exchange vows in front of 250,000 people. They also get fed, with charcuterie boards, four bottles of wine — red, white, or sparkling — and a wedding cake by Guittard Chocolate Company.

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Date and time
Aug. 8-10
Price
$235-$5,299