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A billboard for the Los Angeles Wine & Food Festival. (Photo via social media)

Tastemade, the Los Angeles-based media company that produces and distributes video series involving food, travel, home and culture, has signed on to serve as a presenting co-host of the Los Angeles Wine & Food Festival this year.

The festival will take place in November, and will move from its former home at the Santa Monica Pier to a new location at the Barker Hangar along Airport Avenue in Santa Monica.

The show promises to bring together acclaimed chefs, tastemakers, culinary experts and influencers from across the food, wine and beverage industries.

“We are excited to bring the Los Angeles Wine & Food Festival back this fall with expanded programming and a new home at the Barker Hanger,” said Brett Friedman, the founder and CEO of A21 (stylized as a21), the event’s organizer. L.A. is a unique and...

When Larry Fitzgibbon co-founded Tastemade in 2012 alongside Joe Perez and Steven Kydd, he did so with one thought in mind: What if they capitalized on a changing media landscape while doing something interesting?

“We thought if we could take this big business trend and couple it with our personal passions and interests, we could make something special,” Fitzgibbon, who is now CEO of the company, told TheWrap as part of our Office With a View Q&a series.

That idea led to a brand that has over 160 million followers across social media, 13 million monthly streams and over 5,000 creators in its roster. It’s also a brand that’s blown up in the Fast (free ad-supported TV) space, partnering with major streaming services such as YouTube TV, Roku and Sling TV. It has has expanded past Tastemade proper, launching Travel, Home and Espanõl hubs. That’s an impressive TV footprint for...

Niara Simon-Hollis. (Courtesy photo)

Lifestyle media company Tastemade has promoted Niara Simon-Hollis to serve as its head of marketing, where she will take charge of brand marketing strategy across all of Tastemade’s business units, the company affirmed this week.

As part of her new role, Simon-Hollis will oversee a comprehensive marketing strategy that will cover all aspects of the brand’s businesses, including its presentation to consumers and business partners, with the goal of growing Tastemade’s subscriber products and other objectives.

“Niara’s hard work on developing our streaming marketing strategy has been instrumental to our success in that business line over the last couple of years,” Larry Fitzgibbon, Tastemade’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Her new role emphasizes our commitment to aligning Tastemade’s strategic goals and enhancing our brand experience across all touchpoints, and we look forward to her leadership in driving innovation,...

Exclusive: Niara Simon-Hollis has been promoted to head of marketing at Tastemade.

In her new role, she will oversee the brand marketing strategy throughout all of Tastemade with specific goals including streaming growth, Tastemade+ memberships, consumer engagement, and overall brand awareness.

She will continue to report to Evan Bregman, Tastemade’s General Manager, Streaming & Direct-to-Consumer.

In a statement, Tastemade’s Co-Founder & CEO Larry Fitzgibbon said: “Niara’s hard work on developing our streaming marketing strategy has been instrumental to our success in that business line over the last couple of years. Her new role emphasizes our commitment to aligning Tastemade’s strategic goals and enhancing our brand experience across all touchpoints, and we look forward to her leadership in driving innovation, creativity, and growth in her expanded role.”

Simon-Hollis joined Tastemade in 2023 as a senior marketing director for streaming, where she led marketing across the brand’s four streaming channels.

Elvina Payne. (Courtesy photo)

Lifestyle media brand Tastemade has elevated Elvina Payne to the role of Chief Financial Officer, the company announced on Wednesday.

Payne joined Tastemade as the company’s global corporate controller in 2016. In that role, she was instrumental in building out Tastemade’s financial strategy and helping to shape the overall foundation of the company. Tastemade produces original television series focused on food, travel, home and interior design, with the shows distributed through subscription and free, ad-supported streaming TV (Fast) services.

In her new role, Payne will build on her success by overseeing all aspects of Tastemade’s financial strategy, planning and operations. She will report to Larry Fitzgibbon, the co-founder and CEO of Tastemade.

“Elvina has played a key role in shaping Tastemade’s financial strategy since she joined the team in 2016,” Fitzgibbon said in a statement. “I’m confident that her experience as an operational...

Matilda “Tilly” Ramsay, daughter of Gordon Ramsay, is to host a cooking show for Amazon.

She is hosting Dish It Out, the first of 15 shows being brought to Prime Video and Freevee over the next few years as part of a first-look deal with Tastemade.

Dish It Out will see Tilly Ramsay receive a mystery box of goods from various chefs and home cooks around the world in each episode and she will cook up a recipe. The series has received a 32-episode order with production starting later this year in Tastemade’s London studios.

All of the shows will be produced by Tastemade Studios, helmed by Taye Shuayb, global head of studios and content development.

In addition to cooking show, there will be travel and entertainment series.

“We are so pleased to partner with Tastemade’s award-winning team to bring Tilly Ramsay’s fresh and fun approach to cooking to our Amazon customers,...

Tastemade has struck a multiyear deal with Constellation Brands — the wine and spirits company behind Robert Mondavi Winery, Lingua Franca, The Prisoner Wine Company and High West Whiskey, among others — to create a slate of original programming.

The multimillion-dollar deal will include the creation and sale of original series to outside streamers, as well as the development of original shows for Tastemade’s ad-supported streaming channel. The first series from the partnership, Street Somm, is currently in development and is expected to premiere in the back half of the year on Tastemade’s streaming channel. The travel-style show will follow a sommelier visiting a different city in the U.S. and meeting a local to eat food and make some surprising wine pairings along the way.

The goal of the partnership, according to Constellation Brands’ Robert Hanson, is to engage younger drinking-age audiences. “The reality is [that] the wine business, in particular,...

Back in 2018, digital food network Tastemade announced plans to follow up Tastemade Café (a since-closed brick-and-mortar eatery connected to its headquarters in São Paulo) with the launch of more Irl restaurants.

Now, five years later, the first of those restaurants is opening its doors.

Tastemade Me Tacos opens today in the Citizens Culinary Market food hall at Hudson Yards in New York City. The restaurant is a joint effort between Tastemade and C3 by sbe, a food tech platform. It will offer both in-person dining (from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday) and delivery through apps like DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats.

The restaurant’s menu was designed by Los Angeles-based chef Wes Avila, who founded well-known food truck Guerrilla Tacos and is the owner/chef at Angry Egret Dinette in L.A.

Dishes are a mix of offerings and flavors from Mexico, the Mediterranean, Asia, and the American Southwest,...

Tastemade is going home for the holidays. The content publisher, which began a decade ago as a cooking hub, will launch shows about interior decoration and real estate on Tastemade Home, a new streaming channel. In addition, the lifestyle brand has named Evan Bregman as its General Manager of Streaming.

Tastemade Home, like the company’s other channels, will be available through streaming platforms like Amazon Freevee, Tubi, and Sling TV. Though Tastemade broke out on YouTube, it has recently found success on TV screens.

According to a press release, Tastemade Home will be a “natural extension” of the company’s social channels, where homey content has become common. Some of the shows coming to the new streaming channel — such as Tia Mowry‘s Weekend Refresh — began on platforms like Instagram and YouTube.

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In addition to Weekend Refresh,...

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Pinterest and Tastemade have inked a multiyear content deal that will see the food and lifestyle company produce 50 new shows, events and live programming for the social platform.

Programming under the multimillion-dollar deal will begin to launch later this year and through 2023, according to a Tuesday announcement from the companies. The new shows, produced in at least eight languages, will debut exclusively on Pinterest and feature top creators from both Pinterest and Tastemade across the U.S, Latin America, Europe and the Asia Pacific.

Tastemade will also host in-person events for Pinterest and Tastemade creators at its studios in Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, Jakarta, Mumbai, São Paulo and Buenos Aires.

The pact between the two companies is the first major deal overseen by Malik Ducard since he joined Pinterest in October from YouTube, where he most recently served as the video giant’s vp content partnerships.

It's almost time for James Gunn's The Suicide Squad to hit cinemas and the final trailer recently landed, building up what is already a pretty hyped return of the anti-hero misfits. With the movie bringing back fan-favorites like Harley Quinn and Captain Boomerang, there are a whole host of new and crazy characters arriving in the huge cast, including Peacemaker, played by John Cena. Of all the new characters, we know that we will be getting to know the former wrestler's new alter-ego a lot better as he is already getting his own spin off show on HBO Max.

Already underway filming, the series will focus on John Cena's Peacemaker character, but other than that, we know very little else about how the spin-off will look. While answering fan questions on his Twitter account, director, James Gunn, who is also working on the series, was asked about the upcoming...

James Gunn’s Suicide Squad spinoff HBO Max series Peacemaker has added Chukwudi Iwuji, as Clemson Murn in a series regular role, and three recurring guest stars, those being Lochlyn Munro as Larry Fitzgibbon, Annie Chang as Detective Sophie Song and Christopher Heyerdahl as Captain Locke.

Peacemaker will explore the origins of John Cena’s character from the upcoming Aug. 6, 2021 Warner Bros. release, which is also being planned to hit HBO Max at the same time. Peacemaker is a guy who believes in peace at any cost — no matter how many people he has to kill to get it.

Of the four characters announced, Fitzgibbon is the head doctor at Belle Reve penitentiary in DC Comics lore and he’s an aide to government official Amanda Waller who assembles the Suicide Squad (played by Viola Davis in the movie).

Today’s quad joins previously announced series regulars Cena, Danielle Brooks,...

“Peacemaker,” the HBO Max “Suicide Squad” spinoff series, continues to grow.

The show has added four new faces to its cast, namely Chukwudi Iwuji (“When They See Us”) as a series regular, and Lochlyn Munro (“Riverdale”), Annie Chang (“Shades of Blue”) and Christopher Heyerdahl (“Togo”) as recurring guest stars.

They join previously announced cast members John Cena (playing the titular role), Danielle Brooks, Steve Agee, Robert Patrick, Jennifer Holland, and Chris Conrad in the series which is a spinoff from James Gunn’s forthcoming “The Suicide Squad” pic.

Few details about the exact roles these new additions will play are being made available, other than their names. Iwuji is playing a character named Clemson Murn, Munro is playing Larry Fitzgibbon, Chang is joining as Detective Sophie Song, and Heyerdahl will play Captain Locke.

Munro’s character Fitzgibbon is described as a wry and kind character who is Detective Song’s partner and friend.

Evan Funke may be known for his handmade pasta, but the noodle master can still be taught new lessons. The chef and star of the new Tastemade documentary film “Funke” gets a lesson in making orecchiette — or small ears — from a maestra.

In this exclusive clip, which you can watch above, Funke travels to Bologna, Italy, to learn how to make orecchiette from a woman whose “life work” has been hand-making pasta daily for over 55 years.

“It’s like a machine,” Funke says, watching the woman work as she rolls out shell after shell. Funke tries to match her speed and output but smiles incredulously when he realizes he can’t.

Also Read: Chef Evan Funke to Star in 'Shape of Pasta' for Quibi

“He may be good at cooking … good like no other, but he’s definitely not good at making orecchiette,” the woman jokes.

Eventually, Funke gets the hang of it,...

Digital food and lifestyle network Tastemade, which has more than one million followers on YouTube and recently debuted its first feature film, just closed a $35 million Series E round of funding, snagging dough from new investors Amazon and Cool Japan Fund.

The round, like Tastemade’s previous funding rounds, was led by investment firm Goldman Sachs. Existing investors, including Comcast Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Raine Ventures, and Liberty Media, also chipped in. The $35 million brings Tastemade's total funds raised to $80.3 million.

“Tastemade has cemented its position as a leading lifestyle media brand for millennials around the world,” Larry Fitzgibbon, Tastemade’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “This funding will allow us to continue to develop a strong connection with our core audience through their passions for food, home & design, and travel, and bring new consumers into our worldwide community.”

Tastemade added its home and design and travel verticals late last year,...

Participant Media’s SoulPancake — the studio and production company founded by Rainn Wilson — and food and lifestyle media company Tastemade are collaborating on TV shows the companies hope to sell to a network or streaming platform.

Under the agreement, SoulPancake and Tastemade are jointly develop and producing three unscripted long-form TV projects: matchmaker series “Board of Dating,” in which singles put their love lives in the hands of a panel of friends and family; “Move Today,” in which people stuck in a rut are transported to a new life in a new city; and “Wild Therapy,” where a survivalist host leads couples in dysfunctional relationships on epic adventures.

To drive interest among prospective buyers, the companies will pilot two of the shows — “Board of Dating” and “Move Today” — on their digital channels, which they say reach a combined audience of more than 35 million followers. “Board of Dating” premieres Friday (Oct.

“Tutta la pasta fatta in casa” is Italian for “All pasta is made in house,” and unless you have an Italian grandmother, rolling and crafting your own pasta in your home is a dying art.

But acclaimed Los Angeles chef Evan Funke walked away from his hit restaurant Bucato three years ago and traveled to Bologna, Italy, to learn how to make handmade pasta straight from the masters.

In an exclusive clip from the new documentary “Funke,” which makes its world premiere at the L.A. Film Festival on Sept. 26, the master talks pasta as part of the journey he had to opening his blockbuster Venice, Calif., restaurant Felix in 2017.

Also Read: 'Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown' Final Episodes to Begin With Tour of Kenya (Video)

Evan Funke

“I’ve been waiting years to make these pastas in a true authentic matter,” Funke says in the clip. “I spent a...

YouTube TV is bringing two digital-first media companies — Tastemade and Tyt Network (aka The Young Turks) — into the pay-tv realm.

Google’s internet-tv service is adding 24-hour linear channels from Tastemade, a travel, food and lifestyle media company, and Tyt, which focuses on news commentary, politics and entertainment. Both will join the YouTube TV lineup starting Thursday.

For YouTube, one of the key motivations behind the deals is to tap into the large online followings of Tastemade and the Young Turks, to potentially lure new subscribers to YouTube TV and its core lineup of 50-plus traditional broadcast and cable networks.

“We’ve seen them build huge and engaged audiences over the years [on YouTube],” said Heather Moosnick, director of content partnerships, YouTube TV. “In news and lifestyle, these are really compelling content areas for us. We’re excited to see them join the rest of the best of television, which YouTube TV already carries.