Award-Winning Chef Andrew Zimmern to Headline AltaSea’s Blue Hour 2026

Zimmern will lead a live cooking and tasting experience featuring sustainable seafood, sea vegetables, and alternative ocean-based proteins.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles is proud to announce that Andrew Zimmern, Emmy- and four-time James Beard Award-winning TV personality, chef, food equity and climate activist, author and Global Ambassador to the United Nations World Food Programme, will headline Blue Hour 2026, AltaSea’s annual fundraiser and immersive culinary experience. The event will take place Saturday, October 10, 5:30-10 PM at AltaSea’s oceanfront campus in San Pedro. Tickets are now on sale, with early-bird pricing available through August 8. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit: https://altasea.org/blue-hour-2026/

Now in its seventh year, Blue Hour will bring together world-renowned chefs, ocean advocates, entrepreneurs, and changemakers to reimagine how food can help protect the planet. Zimmern will lead a live cooking and tasting experience featuring sustainable seafood, sea vegetables, and alternative ocean proteins.

Zimmern has spent decades championing responsible sourcing, healthier waterways, and the preservation of culinary traditions tied to coastal communities around the world. His career has been dedicated to using his platform to educating people about culture through food as evidenced by broadcast series including, MSNBC’s “What’s Eating America” and the PBS series, “Hope in the Water.” His recent cookbook, The Blue Food Cookbook, a sustainable seafood bible co-authored with Barton Seaver in collaboration with ocean food advocacy nonprofit Fed by Blue, highlights how feasible sustainable consumption really is. Zimmern joined AltaSea’s Board of Trustees earlier this year after receiving the organization’s Innovation Award at Blue Hour 2025.

“Food is one of the most powerful ways to connect people to one another and to the health of our oceans,” said Zimmern. “Blue Hour captures what makes AltaSea so special – using food to bring people together, spark curiosity, and show that a healthier ocean can also create stronger communities and a more sustainable future.”

Zimmern will be joined by a roster of acclaimed chefs, including Dustin Trani, owner and chef of Trani’s Dockside Station, and Chris Cosentino, an award-winning chef, author, and sustainability advocate known for advancing responsible sourcing and reducing food waste.

A fourth-generation chef, Trani began working in the kitchen of his family’s legendary San Pedro restaurant, J. Trani’s, as a child and became its executive chef at age 18. He later expanded his culinary training in Bangkok and Italy and worked alongside acclaimed chefs Todd English and Ming Tsai before opening restaurants of his own. Today, Trani carries forward his family’s century-long culinary legacy at Trani’s Dockside Station, where he showcases locally sourced, sustainable seafood just steps from AltaSea and the Los Angeles waterfront.

Cosentino has built an acclaimed career around bold cooking, responsible sourcing, and a commitment to using ingredients thoughtfully and completely. The winner of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters and author of the James Beard Award-nominated cookbook Offal Good: Cooking from the Heart with Guts, Cosentino has opened celebrated restaurants across the country. His short-film series, Feast or Famine: Climate on the Table, explores how climate change is reshaping the global food system through conversations with farmers, fishermen, ranchers, winemakers, chefs, and scientists working on the front lines.

For Blue Hour, Chef Cosentino will partner with Koast Maui to create a one-of-a-kind culinary experience that celebrates sustainable seafood, thoughtful sourcing, and the connection between ocean conservation and exceptional cuisine.

“Andrew Zimmern is a culinary rockstar who has spent his career using food as a bridge between cultures and a platform for protecting our planet,” said AltaSea President & CEO Terry Tamminen. “Sustainable seafood is a critical pillar of the blue economy, and Andrew, Dustin, Chris, and other chefs joining us are helping lead the way by showing how delicious, innovative, and essential ocean-friendly cuisine can be.”

Blue Hour 2026 is proudly presented by Title Sponsor Carrix, a strategic partner of AltaSea and a champion of its mission to advance the blue economy, innovation, education, and economic opportunity. Additional sponsors include Delta Air Lines, Arc Boats, Blue Robotics, Fenix Marine Services, Dr. Geraldine Knatz, Verizon, and others.

The night will also feature interactive pavilions highlighting the people and technologies helping build a more sustainable ocean economy. LA Harbor College’s Culinary Arts Program will showcase the next generation of culinary talent through dishes inspired by sustainable seafood and blue foods. AltaSea tenant Arc Boats will offer guests a closer look at the future of electric marine transportation and the technologies reshaping how people move across the water. Additional culinary and innovation pavilions will be announced ahead of the event.

In addition to the culinary experiences, AltaSea will also present its annual awards. Tina Calderon, AltaSea’s Special Advisor and Cultural Consultant, will receive the NextGen Award, which recognizes leaders and institutions helping shape a more equitable and sustainable future for the next generation. Calderon has helped bring Indigenous history, culture, and stewardship into AltaSea’s public programming, including acknowledgements recognizing that AltaSea’s campus is located on the traditional lands and waters of the Tongva people.

This year’s recipient of the Innovation Award is Growing Oceans, with the award presented by Marc von Keitz of the Grantham Foundation. The Innovation Award recognizes people and organizations that display ingenuity, drive progress, and develop solutions to pressing environmental challenges. Growing Oceans, an initiative based at AltaSea, is advancing research into how nitrogen-fixing phytoplankton can help draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while supporting ocean health.

Funds raised through Blue Hour support AltaSea’s Ocean STEM programs, which provide educational experiences to students throughout Los Angeles at no cost. These programs introduce young people to career opportunities across the blue economy, including sustainable aquaculture, marine robotics, renewable energy, and ocean exploration.

About AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles

AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles, located on 35 acres at North America’s leading seaport by both container volume and cargo value, is dedicated to accelerating scientific collaboration, advancing an emerging blue economy through business innovation and job creation, and inspiring the next generation, all for a more sustainable, just, and equitable world.

For more information on AltaSea, please visit: https://altasea.org.