Diego Argoti’s pasta pop-ups are elusive. The irreverent, genre-bending chef typically announces his pasta events with suggestive fliers only a day or two in advance, haunts L.A.’s alleyways and parking lots late into the evening, and then vanishes again.
But not on Thanksgiving.
Without fail, the former Poltergeist chef can be found on Thanksgiving Day handing out free bowls of leftovers-inspired noodle soups piled with mashed potatoes, turkey and X.O.-laced cranberry sauce. It’s his way of giving back to the city, and providing for anyone who needs somewhere to go for a warm meal — and of giving himself a new appreciation for the holiday.
Argoti preferred to spend Thanksgiving in the kitchen long before he was cooking up bowls of altruism, though it was to avoid the day, not celebrate it.
“It was a very sad time,” he said. “All I cared about was working and partying.”
But in 2017 he was invited to a fellow chef’s house, where he and other cooks prepared the most extravagant meal imaginable: turducken roulade, pumpkin stuffed with mac and cheese, a green bean casserole topped with croissant dough, turkey gravy with gizzards and hearts drizzled over hachiya persimmons. It was Argoti’s signal that he can, and should, get real weird with it.
The following year, during his time in the kitchen of Bavel, one of Argoti’s co-workers mentioned that he didn’t have anyone to spend Thanksgiving with. So Argoti invited him over and spent the holiday pushing the boundaries again. They shoved a whole pineapple into the carcass of an al pastor-inspired turkey and hung it over a grill at a basketball court. They fashioned a steamed-cabbage roulade with layers of sourdough stuffing, pumpkin purée, roast turnips and mushroom gravy. Argoti invited his parents, and he felt he was finally falling into the groove of Thanksgiving.
“It was this very lavish, over-the-top dinner, and a way to redeem myself,” he said. “It was the first time I ever took any days off to cook Thanksgiving … they turned into us cooking more [as a family], and being more united.”
Then the pandemic hit.
His friends and family weren’t gathering, but Argoti realized a sidewalk pop-up could be the perfect platform to provide a social solution.
“I noticed that there were resources for people that didn’t have shelter or food, but there weren’t any services or resources for people that could have all the money in the world and be well-off, but lonely and depressed and alone,” said Argoti, who struggled with depression and substance abuse for years. “At least you could have your friends or go visit your family that you miss. And now [due to COVID] that was out of the equation.”
He set up portable burners in the parking lot of Echo Park’s Button Mash — the arcade that would house Argoti’s acclaimed but since-shuttered restaurant, Poltergeist — doling out Thanksgiving-inspired ramen and other comforting off-the-walls creations. The next year he did it again, to more than double the interest..
Argoti solicits pre-orders through the Estrano Instagram account’s direct messages in the week ahead of Thanksgiving. Now, approaching his fifth iteration of the pop-up, he’s made friends and recognizes repeat guests through the years. Some are people who can’t get home to their out-of-town families, some are nurses working the graveyard shift, others work in the service industry and are heading to feed others on the holiday. Sometimes, a whole family will show up together simply because they don’t feel like cooking.
Argoti doesn’t judge any guests’ situation, provided they follow the rules: one bowl of soup per person, place the order via DM, and schedule the pickup time.
One year, Argoti said, he emailed a national grocery chain to request two turkeys in donation. A “really demeaning” corporate response told him that his efforts would be better spent donating to charity instead of cooking for the community. He continued anyway.
Argoti doesn’t accept payment for the soups, though a few donors have sent $100 in support of the cause and to help pay for ingredients. He preps his giveaway for 24 to 48 hours, roasting the turkeys, shaving their meat, and boiling the bones in cauldrons of stock that simmer for a full day.
Last year Argoti cropped up in the kitchen of Skyduster Beer’s forthcoming Silver Lake brewpub, where the chef plans to appear again this year. He confited turkey legs, whipped up the topping of pommes purée, and potioned-up a large vat of lemongrass-heavy tom kha gai for a vegan option.
Fresh pumpkin spice-tinged pasta sat on the counter, boiled to order per pickup time just as it would be in a full restaurant setting. Sometimes friends showed up to help cook, and his mother — who is often a fixture in the kitchen each year — helped to oversee the soup hand-offs. Solo diners and groups of friends gathered outside the kitchen.
For a chef whose event fliers often depict obscene imagery — like an avocado wearing a ball gag or Hello Kitty flipping the bird — it’s a surprisingly wholesome affair. And it comes but one day a year.
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