2 min read- After a weekend of eating through Coachella, one dish stood out as the festival’s clear favorite: paella.
- Gerard’s Paella has become one of Coachella’s most popular food vendors, serving its signature chicken-and-shrimp bowl.
- At $22, the portion is generous enough to share, making it one of the more worthwhile food buys on the festival grounds.
If you had asked me a week ago what I thought music festival food looked like, I’d probably have come up with amusement park staples like pizza and hot dogs. But the dining options at Coachella are far more elaborate. Sure, you can find some of the classics, but there’s also full charcuterie boards, chicken nuggets topped with caviar, and lobster grilled cheese sandwiches.
I spent the first weekend of Coachella wandering the festival grounds in search of the most delicious (and most absurd) food. Almost immediately, I noticed one dish that nearly everyone seemed to be eating: paella.
Everywhere I looked, people were digging into bowls piled high with golden yellow rice. In both the general admission and VIP areas, the lines stretched across the grass all day long. I may not have access to official sales data, but anecdotally, I can confirm that paella is the most popular dish at Coachella.
It all comes from one vendor: Gerard’s Paella. After a ski trip in Spain introduced Chef Gerard Nebesky to traditional paella, he mastered the dish and eventually brought it on the road. He’s been serving it at Coachella for more than a decade and has become a regular at festivals across the country.
Nebesky also earned the nickname “Prince of Paella” after beating Bobby Flay on a 2008 episode of Throwdown. But even without the title, the draw of Gerard’s Paella speaks for itself.
At Coachella, Nebesky and his team cook multiple batches of paella at staggered times across six massive pans. Once the rice is perfectly cooked, they use a giant shovel to scrape the crispy layer from the bottom (also known as the soccarat), so that each serving gets some golden-brown, crunchy pieces.
There’s just one flavor on the menu: chicken and shrimp, topped with sweet peppers, arugula, sofrito, paprika, saffron rice, and a creamy garlic aioli. The dish is spiced, but not spicy; people who want to feel the heat can also add Sriracha.
Like nearly every other food item at Coachella, the price of a bowl has climbed over the years. But at $22 each, the portion is generous enough to feed two people. Social media users have also said the paella keeps them full all day, which is not nothing when you’re out in the desert all day.
Whether you’re looking for fuel, flavor, or simply the one dish everyone else seems to have already figured out, Gerard’s Paella is the Coachella meal that actually lives up to the hype.