• World's 50 Best rumours and predictions

The rock'n'roll circus of chefs and food media that is The World's 50 Best Restaurant Awards has rolled into town. Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building will host the awards on Wednesday night and food fans around the globe are frothing for the results.

Chefs such as Massimo Bottura (Osteria Francescana, Italy), Brett Graham (The Ledbury, Britain), Daniel Humm and Will Guidara (Eleven Madison Park, USA), Gaggan Anand (Gaggan, Thailand), Grant Achatz (Alinea, USA) and Jordi Roca (El Celler De Can Roca, Spain) have already been announced for the "food Oscars" and are speaking at #50BestTalks in Sydney and Melbourne, co-presented by Fairfax Events.

Tourism Australia has dropped big money to fly the chefs plus 70 international media guests and all 26 of the World's 50 Best academy chairs to the awards night, which anchors a longer program of all-Aussie adventures. What else are these food influencers getting up to while they're here, then? And, more importantly, what are we feeding them?

The first official event of The World's 50 Best program is the Chef's Feast on Tuesday evening. It's a night that looks set to rival the full bells, whistles, fireworks, speedboat and string-orchestra spectacular that was Tourism Australia's "Invite the World to Dinner" event in 2014.

Held seaside at St Kilda's West Beach Bathers Pavilion, the invite-only Chef's Feast will see Gilmore joined by an impressive roll call that counts Martin Benn (Sepia), Shannon Bennett (Vue de Monde), Kylie Kwong (Billy Kwong), Jock Zonfrillo (Restaurant Orana), Lennox Hastie (Firedoor) and Analiese Gregory (Bar Brose). The chefs will showcase Australia's top produce through their own signature dishes such as crisp saltbush cakes with organic tamarind courtesy of Kwong, vine-grilled dry-aged Rangers Valley beef rib from Hastie, and Gilmore's congee of pearl oyster with blacklip abalone, heart of palm and black vinegar laver.

Benn is serving yellowfin tuna sashimi with jamon iberico cream, avocado, ponzu, wasabi and pork crackling, and Zonfrillo is making a coal pit to cook magpie goose with pandanus and bunya nut ferment. (In case you missed the magpie goose memo, it's a large wetland fowl from the northern tropics that was crowned Australia's Sexiest Game Bird 2016 after Rene Redzepi started jonesing for it at Noma Oz. Zonfrillo has been championing magpie goose for years.)

It wouldn't be a mass-scale food tourism event in Australia without Neil Perry's involvement, and the top dog is in charge of pre-awards snacks and after-party catering at Rockpool Dining Group's new events space at Alfred Place.

As a proud flag-waver for Aussie farmers and produce, Perry is working with Walker Seafoods' tuna from Mooloolaba, Spencer Gulf prawns, Coffin Bay oysters, Flinders Island spanner crab, Tasmanian lobster, Cape Grim Beef rib-eye, Blackmore wagyu and Paroo kangaroo from far west NSW.

Hangovers ranging from mild to catastrophic are predicted on Thursday morning and QT Melbourne (where many chefs are staying) has added a bloody mary-making kit to its 50 Best gift bag in preparation. (The bag also contains Tim Tams, lamingtons, personalised Vegemite and an engraved knife which might not be best gift for any chefs travelling only with hand luggage.)

Tourism Australia is throwing a post-awards yum cha breakfast on QT's rooftop and after a few dumplings the chefs will jet off in different directions for tailored food experiences that touch all eight states and territories.

It's a chockers program of eating, boozing and sightseeing that includes exploration of the NSW south coast oyster trail, heli-fishing for barramundi in the Kimberley, diving and sailing in the Great Barrier Reef, cellar door and galley tours of Canberra and a wild South Australian feast cooked by Jock Zonfrillo and Africola's Duncan Welgemoed.

One of the special award-winning chefs (Tourism Australia is tight lipped on exactly who) will travel by helicopter to Mount Zero in Victoria, visit Best's Wines and Pink Lake, eat and stay at the Royal Mail Hotel, then fly to Cape Bridgewater for a seafood campfire lunch before retiring to Brae for dinner and a spell. Meanwhile, winner of the World's Best Female Chef 2017, Ana Ros (Hisa Franko, Slovenia), will visit Queensland's Sunshine Coast to eat at the Long Apron, try camel milk at QCamel dairy farm near the Glasshouse Mountains, hit Wasabi in Noosa for local sashimi and dig for pippies on Fraser Island.

The Tasmanian trip organised for Isaac McHale of Clove Club (the London restaurant that took home the highest new entry award in 2016) is the jaunt I'd most love a backseat ticket to, though. Tasmania may well have the best shellfish in the world and eating it straight from from the ocean is an unforgettable taste. McHale and the Clove Club crew will be diving for seaweed, oysters, abalone and sea urchin with sustainable seafood hero James Ashmore in addition to eating at Franklin, Templo and Rodney Dunn's Agrarian Kitchen in the Derwent Valley. Lucky sods.

Now, I know what you're thinking. I'm thinking it too. "Why are my taxpayer dollars being used to chopper Heston and his mates around Victoria to get sauced at wineries?

"We know from our research that Australia's association with great food and wine rises significantly among international travellers after they've visited and sampled the culinary delights that Australia has to offer," says Tourism Australia managing director John O'Sullivan.

"These chefs, visiting media and academy chairs will get to sample some of Australia's best food and wine experiences and see first-hand the people, produce and places which makes our country's food and wine offering so world class. It worked incredibly well for 'Invite the World to Dinner' back in 2014 and we're confident this high profile form of advocacy will prove equally successful in this the latest phase of our successful Restaurant Australia campaign."

Fair enough, then. Now, on with the show.