Percy Mueda walked to the microphone at Fort Mason Center on May 17 and told a thousand people in black tie what it actually means to have someone show up at your door every week with a meal, a smile and a conversation.
That moment was the 38th Annual Star Chefs & Vintners Gala in its clearest form. Everything else, the 70-plus chefs, the 60-plus vintners, the four-course dinner, the $5.7 million raised for Meals on Wheels San Francisco, existed in service of what Percy said from that stage.
Meals on Wheels San Francisco has delivered more than 2.6 million meals in a single year to over 5,400 older adults across San Francisco and Northern San Mateo County. Many live alone. Many face mobility limitations or chronic illness that make a grocery run genuinely impossible. The organization is the only one in the Bay Area delivering quality, nutritious meals and groceries to its clients, and its annual gala funds roughly one-third of its operating budget. For 38 years, the city’s culinary community has shown up to make sure that math works.
This year’s gala, presented by Kaiser Permanente and Delta Dental, was chaired by Stuart Brioza, the James Beard Award-winning chef behind State Bird Provisions, The Progress, and the Anchovy Bar. Brioza has been part of this event long enough to understand what it requires, not just great food and great wine, but the kind of sustained commitment from a culinary community that has plenty of other demands on its time. He delivered both. Joining him were chefs from Rich Table, Mister Jiu’s, Cotogna, Foreign Cinema, Nopalito, Nopa, Wolfsbane, ONE65, La Toque, Sorrel, the Slanted Door, and dozens more, many of them returning participants who have made this event a fixture of their calendar year after year.
Honorary Chairs Emily and Samuel Glick led the philanthropic charge alongside CEO Jennifer Steele, who has overseen the organization’s growth into a $23 million operation anchored by a $42 million state-of-the-art kitchen facility that opened in 2020. Kaiser Permanente received the 2026 Community Impact Award for its dedication to combating food insecurity, loneliness, and social isolation among older adults, a recognition that reflects a broader shift in how major health institutions are beginning to treat food access and daily human contact as core health outcomes rather than adjacent concerns.
The live auction ran 13 lots, several of which were exceptional by any standard including a dinner with the Saison alumni chefs, Richard Lee, Brian Limoges of Enclos, Matthew Kammerer of Harbor House, and Jacob Ruck of Jeune et Jolie, offered just 12 couples a seat at a table that will not exist again. It sold on the strength of access that no amount of reservation skill or industry connection could otherwise secure. One auction item sent two couples to Bordeaux with winemakers Philippe and Cherie Melka, including private visits to estates like Château Margaux and Château Cheval Blanc, Michelin-starred dinners throughout Saint-Émilion, and a planning lunch at Melka Estates to design the itinerary together. Another brought 12 guests to NewTree Ranch in Healdsburg for three nights, with Brioza cooking an outdoor feast foraged from the property’s own garden, golf at Mayacama, and a private tasting at Stonestreet Estate. The lots attracted serious bidders because they were serious lots, donated by people with genuine skin in this cause.
The sommelier program running alongside the chef roster drew more than 80 participants, with a Leadership Team anchored by Lars Ryssdal of Art Culinaire Magazine, Cara Patricia of DeCant SF, Debbie Zachareas of Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant, and Adam Robins of the State Bird and Progress family. Wineries pouring included Dalla Valle, Hirsch, Hanzell, Saison, RAEN, Pride Mountain, Favia, Aperture, and more than 50 others, each matched to courses by chefs who, in many cases, have been cooking alongside these same vintners at this same event for years.
San Francisco’s restaurant industry since 2020 has absorbed closures, cost pressures, and labor shifts that would have reshaped the philanthropic commitments of a less rooted community. The people who showed up at Fort Mason on May 17 did so inside all of that. The gala raised $1 million in 2008, $3.3 million in 2019 and $5.7 million in 2026, a trajectory built not on favorable conditions but on consistent participation from a community that keeps deciding this matters.
Percy Mueda’s remarks from the stage put a face to that decision. Across San Francisco and Northern San Mateo County, 5,400 older adults receive meals, wellness checks, nutrition counseling, and social work services from Meals on Wheels San Francisco every day. The gala exists because those services depend on it. And on April 25th, 2027 the chefs will come back, the vintners will uncork, and a community will once again come together to support those in need.
