[Sighs in relief bigger than any sigh of relief ever]

Family Style is back.

Christmas and Thanksgiving and Super Bowl Sunday and your birthday can all kick rocks because Family Style Food Festival is far and away the greatest day of all three hundred and sixty-five of them. All the best food in the world, brought to Fairfax for one single day. Collaborations never thought possible, made possible. Family Style is the stuff of dreams, especially for our co-founders, Ben and Bobby.

Having traveled the world and tasted all the best bites there are at to taste, we trust our fearless leaders to curate a Family Style menu that’s one-of-a-kind and out-of-this-world, and they’ve hit a home run again this year.

From LA sandwich stalwarts and New York bagel gods to Chicago brunch masters and Texas BBQ legends, the Family Style lineup is already making our mouths water, and we’re still a little less than a week away from the big day.

But two restaurants on this year’s lineup stand out among the crowd because they hold a special place in The Hundreds’ heart forever. You see, the magic of Family Style is that it brings chefs and restaurants to the table that would otherwise never be caught dead at a food festival. Family Style hits different, and the cream of the crop of the food world know that.

Parks BBQ and Felix Trattoria couldn’t be any more different as restaurants, but they share something in common, besides both being phenomenal LA restaurants that are must-visits when in the city. Parks and Felix are both part of The Hundreds history, places where Ben and Bobby and the rest of the The Hundreds family has met, talked, plotted, and celebrated. They’re the setting for so many memories in the storied brand’s history that we absolutely had to have them take part in this new chapter.

For Bobby, having Parks BBQ at Family Style is a dream come true. He told me, “It’s incredibly meaningful. The Hundreds and Parks BBQ have a long history. My parents introduced me to the restaurant when it opened in 2003, the same year we started The Hundreds.”

After Bobby and Ben fell in love with the food and the people at Parks back in 2003, the rest was history.

“We quickly turned many of our friends onto it and today it’s regarded as arguably the best Korean restaurant in the world,” Bobby said. “It’s certainly mine.”

But even with nearly two decades of history between The Hundreds and Parks, getting them to agree to do the event still wasn’t a walk in the park.

“Just to convince Jenee to do Family Style was a feat in itself because they don’t do food festivals. But then they agreed to do a collab T-shirt, and they love it! Couldn’t have asked for more.”

When I asked Bobby what’s on the table when he dreams about Parks, he started salivating and said, “For me, the ideal Parks dinner is comprised of marinated kalbi, yuk-hue (beef tartare), naengmyeon (cold noodles), and plenty of banchan (side dishes). Oh, and rice paper!”

For Ben, having Felix at Family Style is a twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as the acclaimed Italian restaurant is one of the select few eateries making a repeat appearance on the ultra-exclusive lineup. And for good reason.

“Felix is one of the best restaurants in Los Angeles, definitely in the Top 5,” Ben Hundreds told me. “I don’t think that anyone makes pasta as well as Evan Funke does.”

That’s high praise from someone who eats a lot of Italian food at a lot of elite-tier Italian restaurants.

If you know Ben, you know he’s an order-the-whole-menu kind of guy, whose only fear in the world is regretting not trying a dish on the drive home. So when he singles out a certain section of a certain menu, you listen.

“Every pasta dish is perfect,” Ben gushed. “When people tell me they’re going to dinner at Felix, I remind them that the pasta is the star of the meal. If you’re going with a group of four people, order at least one pasta dish per person, if not more. You want to try them all. The pasta is really special, and it’s really a special place to eat. It’s some of the best pasta you’ll taste in the country.”

When I asked Ben what dishes are laid out in front of him when he dreams about Felix, he said, “The focaccia is on the table to start. Then, I love the squash blossoms. When I dream about the pasta at Felix, the lasagna is definitely there. Evan very rarely makes it but it’s a ten out of ten. I literally dream about it. His limone pasta and the tagliatelle are both on the dream table as well. Lastly, the corn agnolotti is something from heaven. It’s fucking nuts, so special.”

A follow-up to our previous collaboration with Felix, Ben knew we had to do something really unique for this year’s offering.

“For Family Style, Evan is making a lamb porchetta that sounds incredible. I haven’t had it yet but Evan’s porchetta is famous in LA and he wanted to do something a little bit different for the festival, so he’s making it with lamb. I can only imagine how great it’s going to be. He’s baking all his bread on-site, it’s going to be next level. And if you look at the products from the collab closely, it’s Evan but all made out of one long noodle. It’s great.”