Melbourne Food and Wine Festival Online Edition
Although the physical Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is postponed, some of the city’s best chefs and restaurants are jumping online for a week of talks, tours, demonstrations, theatre and trivia — which you can enjoy from the comfort of your couch. CHECK OUT THE FULL PROGRAM
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Although the physical Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is postponed until restrictions around large gatherings are lifted, some of the city’s best chefs are jumping online to be part of the first virtual food festival.
Running from May 25-30, the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival — Online Edition will amass top international and Victorian talent for a week of free fun and food for thought.
Through Instagram Live, people can tour the Brae kitchen gardens with chef Dan Hunter, walk behind the scenes at Lune Croissanterie with Kate Reidl and cook along with Maha’s Delia as he creates a Middle Eastern feast.
René Redzepi from Noma provides an insight into what’s been happening at the world’s most famous restaurant, Massimo Bottura from Osteria Francescana cooks Australia’s pandemic dish, lasagne, and Ben Shewry from Attica shares what he’s learned in lockdown.
With more than 20 livestreamed events, it’s a week of talks, tours, demonstrations, theatre and trivia. It’s not just online — restaurants across Melbourne will serve up special meals delivered direct for a full multi-sensory experience.
FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL – THE ONLINE EDITION
MONDAY MAY 25
Introduction
10am Instagram Live, @australia / @benshewry
Ben Shewry, chef and owner of Attica introduces MFWF: The Online Edition to the world.
Welcome to MFWF: The Online Edition
1pm, Instagram Live, @melbfoodandwine / @patnourse
What’s The Online Edition all about? How do you get your taste? Anthea Loucas Bosha, MFWF’s CEO and creative director Pat Nourse bring you the lowdown.
Dear MFWF: Baking with Mike Russell, Baker Bleu
5pm, Instagram Live, @bakerbleu / @melbfoodandwine
Starter not starting? Fumbling with your crumb? And just how sour should your dough be, anyway? Mike Russell, Melbourne baker extraordinaire, is here to answer your questions and solve your home baking dramas.
What I’ve Learned in Lockdown: René Redzepi, Noma
7pm, Instagram Live, @reneredzepinoma / @melbfoodandwine
What’s been happening at the world’s most famous restaurant while the world has been on lockdown? How has one of the most creatively fertile minds in food been keeping limber in the meantime? Take a walk with Noma chef and co-owner René Redzepi and find out.
One-on-one: Victor Liong, Lee Ho Fook, and Andrew Wong, A. Wong
9pm, Instagram Live, @awongsw1 / @melbfoodandwine
A meeting between two of the world of Chinese food’s keenest adventurers. Andrew Wong was awarded a Michelin star for his investigations of Chinese gastronomy at A. Wong in London, roaming the breadth of its borders and history and returning with refined takes on everything from rou jia mou to gong bao chicken, plus what might be the first ever prawn cracker to come with the option of a caviar supplement. Victor Liong has won the hearts (and palates) of Australian diners with his “new-style” Chinese food at Lee Ho Fook in Melbourne, where spanner crab “Peter Gilmore-style” with faux shark fin, egg noodles, prawn floss and XO jostles silken tofu with Shilin Night Market sauce and spring-onion pancake for pole position.
And to eat?
Lune: Hits from the MFWF Archives
World-famous Melbourne croissanterie Lune delves into its buttery notebooks to pull out pastry hits from festivals past. The Lune Reuben croissant is back: get them while they last, this week only.
Available in limited quantities daily throughout MFWF: The Online Edition; pre-order via the Lune website.
The Italian Job Experience by Mister Bianco
Experience The Italian Job in your own home with a three-course meal for two with wine inspired by the 1969 Michael Caine classic heist movie. The Italian Job Home Delivery was created by Mister Bianco restaurant as a delivery service during the lockdown. For MFWF: The Online Edition, tonight for one night only The Italian Job Experience presents dishes from Torino, where the movie was filmed: agnolotti with local pine mushrooms, slow-cooked wagyu with polenta and sage burnt butter, and panettone pudding with zabaglione and torroncini. Dishes will be ready to eat or simply heat and serve, with all instructions supplied). The meal will be accompanied by a bottle of Viberti Langhe Nebbiolo. For the full immersive event, customers are encouraged to watch the movie while dining. And, of course The Italian Job Experience will be delivered in a Mini
The Italian Job Experience, $99 for a three-course sharing menu for two with wine. Delivery to suburbs in an 8km radius of the restaurant is $10, and is available from 2pm-4pm or 4pm-6pm on the day; pick-up from Mister Bianco in Kew is preferred, and available noon-7pm. Last orders for this offer are taken at midnight on Sunday 24 May.
TUESDAY 26 MAY
Lunch With: Julia Busuttil Nishimura, Ostro
1pm, Instagram Live, @juliaostro / @melbfoodandwine
Join Melbourne cook, author, teacher, and the creator of the Ostro site Julia Busuttil Nishimura for a cuppa over lunch to talk cooking, kids, the wonder of the one-pan dish and maybe even get a preview of her new cookbook, A Year of Simple Family Food, along the way.
Dear MFWF: Cooking Meat with Neil Perry, Rockpool
5pm, Instagram Live, @chefneilperry / @melbfoodandwine
What Neil Perry doesn’t know about cooking meat isn’t worth bringing to room temperature, cooking over coals, resting and then slicing against the grain. This evening the Rockpool founder and pioneering Australian chef answers every question you had about the fine arts of good meat but were too afraid to ask.
One-on-one: Helen Goh, Ottolenghi, and Pat Nourse, MFWF
9pm, Instagram Live, @helen_goh_bakes / @melbfoodandwine
Born in Malaysia, raised in Melbourne, and resident in London, Helen Goh has been a member of the Ottolenghi team since 2006. Working alongside Yotam Ottolenghi as lead product developer for the last decade, she draws on a wealth of influences, Asian, Western and Middle Eastern. Pastry is her first love (Sweet, the book she co-authored, is a bestseller with good reason), and will be front-and-centre in this conversation with MFWF creative director Pat Nourse.
And to eat?
Lune: Hits from the MFWF Archives
World-famous Melbourne croissanterie Lune delves into its buttery notebooks to pull out pastry hits from festivals past. The Lune Reuben croissant is back: get them while they last, this week only. Available in limited quantities daily throughout MFWF: The Online Edition; pre-order via the Lune website.
WEDNESDAY MAY 27
Lessons from Lockdown: Ben Shewry, Attica
1pm, Instagram Live, @benshewry / @melbfoodandwine
Baking. Cakes. A soup kitchen. Cooking online with Hamish Blake and Senator Briggs. A collab between Attica and Lune. It hasn’t been business as usual just about everyone these last weeks, but Ben Shewry has taken it to the next level. Here’s what he’s learned along the way.
Dear MFWF: Pastry Crimes with Philippa Sibley, The European
5pm, Instagram Live, @philippasibley / @melbfoodandwine
Philippa Sibley has been one of Australia’s most celebrated pastry chefs for more than 25 years, and in that time she has developed some very clear ideas about the good, the bad and the ugly on the dessert trolley. Does icing sugar have a place on the plate? Is there any saving a rubbery panna cotta? And just what is the point of white chocolate, exactly? Tune in for Philippa’s real talk on the sweet stuff, and submit some questions of your own, too, if you’re looking for a straight-talking ruling from the Queen of Tarts.
Dear MFWF: La Vera Lasagne with Massimo Bottura, Osteria Francescana
7pm, Instagram Live, @massimobottura / @melbfoodandwine
When lasagne turns out to be one of Australia’s poster-dishes in lockdown life, there’s no better time to turn to the master, the maestro, the one and only Massimo Bottura, live from the lasagne heartland of Emilia Romagna, to talk about the real thing. We’ll laugh, we’ll cry, we’ll digress wildly. We’ll almost certainly end up talking about art, and you’ll definitely think differently about lasagne afterwards.
Builders Arms Pub Trivia with Cam Smith
8pm, Zoom, via prior registration.
Melbourne’s favourite food trivia is back in virtual form with your inimitable host, RRR broadcaster Cam Smith, asking the questions. Sign up on Zoom with a home team of any size or seriousness for an hour of power taking in all the sensory challenges that make the monthly Builders Arms session such a hit, plus the chance to win dinner for five at the pub itself when dine-in trading resumes. Pick up a free trivia pack from the Builders bottle shop to play along with the sensory challenges, and if you want the full immersive experience, order The Trivia Dinner – a Builders beef pie, plus Janssen’s temptation potato-bake and a Turkish salad. Prepared to finish at home, it just needs 20 minutes in the oven, and can be had for two, four or six diners at $25 a head. And yes, there’ll be drinks specials to go as well: everyone’s a winner.
Registrations for trivia close at 2pm on Tuesday May 26.
And to eat?
Leonardo’s x Black Axe Mangal foie gras ice-cream
Black Axe Mangal’s Lee Tiernan and Leonardo’s chef Nick Stanton are fellow travellers, and tonight for one night only, Nick pays tribute to Black Axe Mangal’s foie gras ice-cream. At Black Axe, it’s served with cherry, peanut butter and a biscuit inscribed with a profanity; tonight, at your place, you can have it however you want it, with the swearwords of your choice.
Leonardo’s x Black Axe Mangal foie gras ice-cream, $30 a tub, pre-orders via leonardospizzapalace.com.au
THURSDAY MAY 28
Kitchen Garden Tour: Brae with Dan Hunter
1pm AEST (3am GMT), Instagram Live, @chefdanhunter / @melbfoodandwine
Brae is the most celebrated paddock-to-plate restaurant in the Southern Hemisphere – and what a paddock. Take a walk through its plots of heirlooms and rarities with owner-chef Dan Hunter himself.
Chris Ying Reads from Lucky Peach
3pm AEST (5am GMT; 10pm Wednesday 27 San Francisco time), @chrisyingz / @melbfoodandwine
Chris Ying writes books (with Mission Chinese Food’s Danny Bowien and Ivan Ramen’s Ivan Orkin among others and makes TV (Ugly Delicious), but you probably know him because he was also the coeditor of Lucky Peach, a food magazine that, in its too-short but sweet run, turned food in print on its head. Join Chris in revisiting some of his favourite moments from the archives.
Dear MFWF: Vegan Hacks with Shannon Martinez, Smith & Daughters
5pm, Instagram Live, @shannon_martinez / @melbfoodandwine
You want to know more about how tasty that no-meats life can be, and Shannon Martinez knows what’s up. Whether you’re vegan, omni, or simply dietary-curious, Shannon has your number. Get in and let’s take a trip to flavour-town.
Things I’ve Learned on Lockdown, Lee Tiernan, Black Axe Mangal
9pm, Instagram Live, @blackaxemangal / @melbfoodandwine
At Black Axe Mangal in London, Lee Tiernan inhabits that special space where Welsh rarebit grows to enormous size, hashbrowns intersect with mapo tofu, tongues fill Reubens, cold pizza becomes French toast, and snacks are served on Matty Matheson’s pulsating nude torso. This evening he fires up the oven at home and talks to MFWF’s Pat Nourse about what’s cooking.
And to eat?
Bar Saracen Plays the Hits of Greg Malouf
Melbourne’s hippest eatery of Middle Eastern appearance pays tribute to the city’s godfather of Middle Eastern restaurant cooking with a takeaway take on some of Greg Malouf’s dishes from protégé and former Momo chef Brooke Payne and Tom Sarafian and his team.
The menu is
•Joujou bread
•Smoky eggplant delight with feta cheese sticks
•Confit salmon tarator-style with coriander, walnuts and tahini sauce
•Malouf’s duck b’stilla
•Cabbage and mint salad
•Date brûlée with Kahlúa and cardamom wafer
Bar Saracen Plays the Hits of Greg Malouf, $70 a head, including a cocktail. Order via barsaracen.com.au for pick-up on the evening. Last orders taken 5pm May 25.
FRIDAY MAY 29
Behind the Scenes: Lune Croissanterie with Kate Reid
1pm, Instagram Live, @lunecroissant / @melbfoodandwine
Just how does she do it? We can’t promise that you’ll walk away from this behind-the-scenes tour of Lune’s kitchens making Kate Reid-grade croissants, but we can say you’ll get to know the ins and outs of this highly original and brilliantly polished Melbourne institution like never before. Join Kate as she walks MFWF CEO Anthea Loucas Bosha through the magic at Lune’s Fitzroy headquarters.
The True Story of Oysters and Champagne
5pm, Instagram Live, @foodcornish / @melbfoodandwine
The Hungry Gentlemen – award-winning wine and food writers Max Allen and Richard Cornish – bring you Friday night drinks with a difference. Streaming live from Pope Joan, the pair will tell the fascinating story of the plunder of Victoria’s ancient native oyster reefs to feed gold rush Melbourne and how today those reefs are being brought back to life. For the full experience, enjoy some sustainable oysters from Wapengo Rocks and a bottle of Victorian sparkling wine.
Middle Eastern Kitchen with Shane Delia
6pm, Instagram Live, @shanedelia / @melbfoodandwine
Shane Delia’s passion for the food of the Middle East is irresistible. Tonight, he opens his kitchen at home and walks you through some favourite dishes from his new Maha Go repertoire. The menu includes slow-roasted lamb shoulder with cumin and garlic, jewelled freekeh, bastourma, caramelised onions, dates and burnt butter, and poached Dutch carrots with yoghurt and mint. Pre-order your cooking class kit if you’d like to cook along in real time – everything is prepped and weighed-out, ready for you – or just join Shane for some inspiration and some good laughs.
Middle Eastern Kitchen cooking-class kits are $130 for two, and include Salt & Pepper crockery for you to keep; orders for the kits are taken until noon, Wednesday May 27, with the kits delivered on Thurs May 28, mahago.com.au.
And to eat?
Oysters and Champagne
Whether you join the live stream of The True Story of Oysters and Champagne or not, you can still enjoy oysters and sparkling wine for Friday night drinks during #MFWFonline. And the best part is you’ll be doing your bit to support our local hospitality industry.
Order some oysters from Wapengo Rocks and not only will you be enjoying some of Australia’s best oysters, you’ll also help a small business that’s been hit this year by bushfires and now the restaurant trading restrictions. While you’re at it, add a bottle of one of the Hungry Gentlemen’s favourite Victorian sparkling wines. On offer are:
•La Zona prosecco, King Valley
•Holly’s Garden Uber Brut, Whitlands
•¬Gembrook Hill Vintage Blanc de Blancs, Yarra Valley
Wapengo Rocks oysters $24 a dozen (unshucked) for a minimum order of two dozen. Pick up from Pope Joan (Shop 16, 45 Collins St, Melbourne), 11am-2pm Friday May 27. Order online now. (Orders close noon Monday May 25).
Wine available for pick-up from Pope Joan (shop 16, 45 Collins St, Melbourne), 11am-2pm Friday May 27.
SATURDAY MAY 30
Behind the Scenes: The Tony Tan Cooking School, with Tony Tan
1pm, Instagram Live, @tonytan53 / @melbfoodandwine
National treasure and international cult culinary idol Tony Tan has enriched our culinary lives in print, online, in books and on the airwaves, but since he retired Toorak’s much-loved Unlimited Cuisine Company some years back, it’s been too long since we’ve been able to cook under Tony’s instruction in a place of his own. All that is set to change with the opening later this year of the Tony Tan Cooking School in Trentham. Get your taste of the new home of global flavours in regional Victoria as Tony gives us a preview of his swish new digs.
Dear MFWF: How to Drink Better with Michael Madrusan, The Everleigh
5pm, Instagram Live, @theeverleigh / @melbfoodandwine
Join the founder of The Everleigh, Michael Madrusan, talking all things drinks, righting the wrongs of the cocktail world and shining a light on all the good things happening in strong drink in conversation with MFWF creative director Pat Nourse. Michael invites you to join him for a drink in real time, with the offer of a cocktail special from The Everleigh delivered hot to your door: a generous pour of Hot Buttered Rum concocted with aged rum, honey and butter topped with freshly grated nutmeg.
Hot Buttered Rum, $18; order before 4pm on Saturday 30 May to have your cocktail delivered hot to your door in select neighbourhoods in time to sip along with the session, theeverleigh.square.site.
For more information go to: mfwf.com.au