Eat your way around the world at Melbourne Food and Wine Festival
GO on a globetrotting gastronomic journey without stuffing a suitcase or leaving town at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.
Melb Food & Wine Festival
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GO on a globetrotting gastronomic journey without stuffing a suitcase or leaving town.
Chopstick your way through China, jaunt to Japan and get South American spicy with the enticing line-up of events celebrating 30 or so international cuisines at the 10-day Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.
On April 1, chefs at Hidden Jade restaurant in Albert Park will swap the kitchen for lakeside stalls as part of a pop-up hawker market for the Sichuan Street Eats event.
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Diners can feast on authentic Chinese street food — dishes such as bobo chicken, noodles with garlic sauce and pork dumplings — cooked and served on the spot.
Take your tastebuds on holiday over 10 days with 15 more Melbourne Food and Wine Festival events celebrating the best of international cuisines
ARGENTINA
La Vendimia
April 2, $165, city.
La Vendimia, the annual wine festival of Mendoza, the heart of Argentina’s wine country, is coming to Melbourne courtesy of San Telmo.
Award-winning Argentinian wine will star, ably supported by five courses of food matched by head chef Steve Clark.
BALI
Balinese Celebratory Feast
April 8, $138, Seddon
Go on a Bali high at Seddon’s Spice Bazaar Cooking School where five gluten-free courses of Balinese cuisine will be served with matching wines.
Team riesling with snapper, Kaffir lime and ginger, pinot noir with Balinese spiced pork, and for sweets, tokay with black sticky rice, palm sugar, salted cream and rice crisps.
There’ll be chilli on the side for those who like it hot.
CAMBODIA
Cambodian Banquet and Traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony
March 31, $63, Springvale
Springvale is a multicultural feast of food, serving up Asian tastes from China, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia on any given day.
At this lunchtime event, first enjoy an authentic Cambodian banquet at the family-run My Cambodia restaurant before heading to the nearby Milan Tea House (named after a Chinese flower, not the Italian city) to savour three teas as you learn how to brew and serve them and their health benefits.
CHINA:
10 Chinese Dishes You’ve Never Tried Before
April 4, $83, Prahran
Look beyond lemon chicken for this culinary adventure that delves a little deeper into Chinese food.
At David’s in Prahran, get the story behind dishes such as rabbit dumplings, Chinese purple spinach, and pan-seared lotus root with minced pork and red dates.
ETHIOPIA
Kabaru Enechewet
March 31, April 1, 7 and 8, $53, Footscray
This event translates to “Let’s play the drums!” and that’s exactly what will happen.
Celebrate the Ethiopian way with traditional drumming at Konjo Cafe Restaurant as coffee is brewed and a communal dinner is served.
Specialties include kifto (a spiced beef dish), doro (a chicken dish prepared for special occasions) and injera, a sourdough flat bread also used as an eating utensil.
GAZA
Laila El-Haddadd Gazan Cuisine
April 6, $58, Footscray
Politically unstable and geographically tiny, Gaza is a powerhouse food region.
Let international chef Laila El-Haddad guide you through the area’s culinary traditions and history with a cooking demo and Q & A session at Raw Materials studio in Footscray.
She authored The Gaza Kitchen and also featured on travel program Parts Unknown guiding Anthony Bourdain through Jerusalem.
GREECE
Friend of the Greeks
April 4, $83, Moonee Ponds
Greece is the word as 21 years of family cooking is celebrated at neighbourhood gem Philhellene where the flavours of Ancient Greece will shine.
Highlights include Cretan specialities passed down through three generations.
INDIA:
A Night in Chandni Chowk
April 1 and 8, $33-$63, Docklands
Indian restaurant Bhoj Docklands channels Delhi’s Chandni Chowk bazaar where locals go to get their street food fix.
Get yours here with a side of energetic Bollywood dancing as chefs prepare dishes served from food carts on the terrace.
ITALY:
Italo Dining & Disco Club
March 31, $150, city
Sydney restaurentuer Maurice Terzini returns to his hometown Melbourne (with Fratelli Paradiso’s Giovanni Paradisoto in tow) to bring their Italo Dining & Disco Club south for the first time.
Taking residence in the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival’s laneway hub dubbed The House of Food & Wine, it pays homage to the Italian street party with modern interpretations of classic fare like lasagne, calamari fritti, porchetta panini and tiramisu washed down with spritzes and vino to a backbeat of funky disco tunes.
JAPAN/ITALIAN
You Say Sensei, We Say Padre
April 4, $133, city
Play nicely as two globally renowned cuisines — Japanese and Italian — go head to head at Russell Pl restaurant Sarti.
With Shoya in the Japanese corner and Sarti in the Italian one, it’s sushi versus carpaccio, noodles versus spaghetti and sake versus wine over four courses in this unique dining face-off.
MIDDLE EAST
Souk: An Arabian Pilgrimage
April 4, $78, city
Check out Souk Melbourne, just opened in the city’s Bligh Pl laneway, where head chef Rogelio Almanza will serve an eight-course menu of shared dishes from different regions of the Middle East — from Marrakesh and Lebanon to Yemen and the Anatolian Peninsula, all with traditional Arabic music live.
PERU:
Gaston Acurio Masterclass
April 2, $35, Federation Square
Known for putting Peruvian food on the world’s radar, Acurio recently came out from retirement to lead the kitchen at his flagship fine-dining restaurant Astrid y Gaston (currently No. 30 in the World’s 50 Best list) in Lima where he cooks dishes such as “peking guinea pig” with purple-corn pancakes, octopus ceviche, and lucuma ice-cream.
He also runs a cooking school, hosts his own TV show, and has written several books including the English-language Peru: The Cookbook. Perk up your foodie knowledge of Peru at a masterclass lead by Acurio while he’s in town for the World’s 50 Best gongs.
RUSSIA:
White Rabbit Masterclass
April 9, $195, Daylesford
At the front of new-wave of Russian cuisine, chef Vladimir Mukhin will join Alla Wolf-Tasker at her Daylesford restaurant Lake House for a masterclass delving into their joint Russian lineages.
Fluent in Russian, Wolf-Tasker will translate Vladimir’s foodie mind as the two talk food, their culinary upbringings and Mukhin’s restaurant White Rabbit, No. 18 on the World’s 50 Best list. Includes demonstration, discussion, recipes, tastings, tea, coffee and a glass of wine.
USA:
Going the Whole Hog
April 2 and 9, $60, Southbank
Third-generation American pit master Kevin Bludso will be on hand to share his smoking secrets at his namesake Crown noshery while barbecue buffs chow down on Texan faves including
meats smoked for 14 hours and sides such as mac’n’cheese, slaw and corn bread.
VIETNAM:
Dinner with Ms Vy
March 30, $89, Southbank
Her Windsor restaurant House of Hoi An is as popular as her four eateries, cooking school and boutique hotel in Hoi An, now feast on Trinh Diem Vy’s (AKA Ms Vy) Vietnamese delights at the Melba restaurant at Southbank’s Langham Hotel.
Expect delights such as pork and prawn summer rolls, pomelo chicken and prawn salad, spiced pork belly with sticky rice and mussels in aromatic spices.
The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival runs from March 31 to April 9.
