Events: L.A. Design Festival, whole pig cook-off at Pechanga, La Varenne class

The Los Angeles Design Festival kicks off Friday and ends June 29. The three-week-long event is featuring several events for L.A.’s foodies. Design and Dim Sum Ride -- bike from Glassell Park to Chinatown on “Flying Pigeons” on June 14 and stop at design studios and other secret spots. The ride will end with dim sum at the Golden Dragon. Buy tickets here. D-Tour With Perkins+Will -- On June 17, Perkins+Will will host a self-guided design crawl that explores the best of food, drink and design downtown along the 7th Street “Restaurant Row” to the edge of the Arts District. D-Tour maps also will get visitors exclusive deals on food and drink at participating venues. Get tickets here. Design Hooky -- three self-guided tours focusing on East, West and Central City. The tours feature conversations with iconic L.A. figures, including Michael Maltzan, Neil Denari and Cliff Fong as well as access to Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects Gallery and Studio Number One, Barbara Bestor’s Silver Lake studio, and a Designer Show and Tell at West Elm. Local eateries are offering specials for tour guests, including Petty Cash, Wurstkuche and Plan Check. Each tour ends with an after-party. Tickets available online for the East tour, West tour and Center City Tour.

The Annual Pechanga BBQ Competition is the largest barbecue cook-off in Southern California. This year, they’ve added a new category -- whole roasted pig. Contestants’ pigs, which take 18 to 24 hours to cook, will be judged by a panel of food experts. Fans can start tasting the barbecue at 10 a.m. on June 21 in the Pechanga South Parking Lot adjacent to the Grand Ballroom. The event ends at 6 p.m. and is open to all ages. Adults are $5, and children ages 10 and under are free. Barbecue tasting tickets are sold separately inside the venue for $2 each. Various vendors require differing amounts of tickets per BBQ taste. Visitors can enjoy live music and dancing throughout the event. For tickets or more information, call (877) 711-2946 or visit www.Pechanga.com/tickets. Pechanga Casino and Resort, 45000 Pechanga Parkway, Temecula.

La Varenne is offering one final class of the season before the cooking series breaks for summer. Josie Le Balch, from Josie Restaurant in Santa Monica, will bring her classic California cooking style to La Varenne on June 21 at 2:30 p.m. Each class is $250 per student with a class maximum of 15 students. The class has only a few spaces left, so act quickly if interested. If you would like to enroll or hear more, call the La Varenne office at (310) 396-7464 or email nicole@lavarenne.com.