It’s dark, and staying dark for longer. June 22 will be the longest night of the year or, as I like to think of it, the shortest working day of the year.

This magical time, when the earth’s poles are at their maximum tilt, has been celebrated with countless pagan rituals linked to harvest cycles and the natural world.

It’s when Tasmania holds its scintillating Dark MoFo midwinter festival, celebrating the solstice with two weeks of candlelit, fire-warmed feasting that culminate in an icy-cold, naked, sunrise swim in the ocean.

In Melbourne and Sydney restaurants, chefs are naturally turning to winter menus and the darker culinary arts. Chestnuts are teamed with smoky speck in fettuccine at the Piemontese Alta Trattoria in Fitzroy, while chef Thi Lee at Jeow in Richmond puts a Laotian spin on winter warmers with or lam, slow-cooked beef short ribs with wood ear, long melon, pepper leaf oil and dill.

Perhaps the darkest feast of all is the supper menu at the new Kafeneion on Melbourne’s Bourke Street, with its humble Greek lamb offal soup, magiritsa. Traditionally served at Easter after Midnight Mass, it’s only available at the witching hours between 10pm and 1am. Which is logical because that’s when you need all the strength you can get.

Offal is back in Sydney, too, with trippa alla Romana – slow-braised honeycomb tripe, underlaid with beans and kicked with chilli – at the recently opened Palazzo Salato from the Love Tilly group.

At the equally new Clam Bar, it’s all about giant rib-eye steaks with sauce Diane. You know it’s winter when macaroni alla vodka is listed as a side dish (and when it comes with kimchi and cheese).

I have my own winter rituals, honed over many years. My cooking gets darker and longer, like the night, as I switch to meaty pasta dishes, roasted vegetables and hearty soups. Beef cheeks rule my world.

I ritualistically move from drinking chilled white wine to room-temperature red. Candles are placed in candlesticks, and ceremoniously lit at the dinner table. Glasses get bigger. Coffee gets stronger. Baths get longer.

I wish, as I do every winter solstice, that I enjoyed drinking whisky, but I thank the pagan gods for sticky toffee puddings by the open fire in cosy pubs. Sure beats skinny dipping in the freezing ocean at sunrise.