DINE-IN: MELBOURNE FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL 2022
4 min read
One of the most anticipated events in Melbourne’s calendar year is back! Melbourne Food and Wine Festival (MFWF) promises a line-up of good food and great company, in the city which knows what’s best.
Kicking off on 25th March 2022, guests are in for a treat for the 2-week long festival stretching until 9th April. Starting with the World’s Longest Lunch and Brunch at the Treasury Gardens, up to 1850 guests will enjoy sit-down feasts curated by legends of Victorian hospitality. Look out for these programmes in store:
World’s Longest Lunch
A three-course meal prepared by some of Melbourne’s culinary giants and headlined by Attica’s Ben Shewry, Australia’s most recognised and celebrated chefs. Add in more than 600-metres of table winding through Melbourne’s world-class Treasury Gardens, this will be a truly spectacular dining experience not to be missed.
Sunday Lunch with Nigella Lawson
A much-loved Melbourne brand meets a phenomenon in publishing, an internationally successful broadcaster, and a single-word synonym for good food, good taste and good times: Nigella. You’ve cooked her books, devoured her shows and love her style – now it’s time to pull up a chair with Nigella Lawson in person.
World’s Longest Brunch
A hugely popular new event, the World’s Longest Brunch takes on a modern Middle Eastern theme. Melbourne’s contemporary Middle Eastern dining scene is the envy of the world, and this treasured part of the city’s food culture enriches the programme with its freshness and spice. Shane Delia of Maha, Joseph Abboud of Rumi and Babajan’s Kirsty Chiaplias, the chef-restaurateurs behind some of Victoria’s pioneering and best-loved Middle Eastern eateries bring their talents to the table, making it a morning you won’t want to miss.
Crawl and Bite
Take it to the streets with a festival favourite! Crawl and Bite uncovers Melbourne’s tastiest laneways, eat streets and neighbourhoods. Each crawl is led by a MFWF host, taking groups of food lovers between three venues, stopping for a bite and drink at each.
Signature Chef Series
Premium dining experiences featuring leading international and special Australian guest talents, hosted by some of Melbourne’s finest venues including Cutler & Co, Rockpool Bar & Grill, Amaru, Stokehouse, Embla, Lee Ho Fook
High Steaks
High Steaks is rekindling the lost art of the long Friday lunch. Get together for a piece of prime Australian beef – grilled to perfection, carved to share, and ready to make your week. Ten Melbourne restaurants of note are coming to the party with special menus featuring Martinis, choice cuts, and fine wine.
The festival also takes up residence at Queen Victoria Market (QVM) with special events, a retail pop-up, workshops and free demonstrations featuring some of Victoria’s finest culinary talents. The iconic market will become a magnet for food-loving Melburnians and visitors, celebrating everything that makes the city delicious, from grills to spaghetti, plants to passionate people. Programme highlights include:
Snacktown
All the best grassroots eats from the city, all in one place. If the quality of its grassroots eating, the good things you can walk in and walk out with, no reservations required, is a way to get the measure of a city’s food culture, then Melbourne comes up trumps all over.
The Big Spaghetti
A pasta street party with food, family and fun: what could be more Italian? This programme is taking pasta back to its street-food origins in a big stand-up event that combines the bustle of hawker markets with the family-friendly and community ethos of Italian street fairs in a celebration of every strand of spaghetti and every forkful of cacio e pepe. Throw in some live music and a healthy splash of wine for good measure and you’ve got a real mambo Italiano on your hands.
Maximum Chips
An ode to the humble chip in all its forms, Maximum Chips is a Friday evening party that’s simply irresistible. With all the chips – crinkle-cut, shoestring, French-fry and maybe even the sneaky wedge – this fun and casual event does exactly what it says on the tin. Maximum Chips will also feature a Condiments Crew serving up the best bits so every event-goer can make their chips their own. Who doesn’t love a hot chip?
Welcome to the Jungle
Party among lush indoor greenery with a 100 percent plant-based party. Lush plantings, floral sculptures and weird plants set the highly Instagrammable scene at Welcome to the Jungle. It is food plus gardens and plants – Planthunter meets Smith & Daughters with a healthy dose of rock and roll. It’s 100 percent vegan, right down to the drinks, all about celebration.
The Convenient Store
A retail offer like no other, The Convenient Store stocks a keen-eyed edit of Victorian food and drink, mixing the high and the low, plus merchandise from local and visiting food-and-drink luminaries. Part Japanese convenience-store, part Brooklyn bodega, part Berlin späti, and presented in partnership with 7-Eleven, it sells a changing array of fresh snacks that includes MoVida’s famed smoked tomato tapa turned into a savoury sorbet exclusive to the store, prawn cocktail-flavoured Chappy’s chips with Yarra Valley Caviar, hot cross buns from To Be Frank; neenish tarts from Falco and pastries from Monforte. Look in the pie warmer and you’ll see the welcome return of the Pie Thief dim sim sausage roll; peek into the freezer cabinet and you’ll find American Doughnut Kitchen ice-cream from Luther’s Scoops and Brick Lane’s beer icy poles.
Established in the first year of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival in 1992, World’s Longest Lunch is supported by naming rights partner Bank of Melbourne and Victoria’s tourism and major events company, Visit Victoria.
For more details, log on to www.melbournefoodandwine.com.au or www.visitmelbourne.com
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