Cake for breakfast, croquet with wine, jumbo croissants and Austrian Greek cuisine are in store for Melbourne food fans next March. The annual Melbourne Food and Wine Festival launched its 10-day program today, featuring more than 200 events that span the hands-on to the haute cuisine. A lunchtime giveaway of more than 1000 dimmies , inspired by the original but taken in new directions by up-and-coming chefs including Rosheen Kaul , will sit alongside a progressive five-course dinner and tour of the MCG, a residency by pioneering British restaurant St John, and hat-making workshops accompanied by wine.
“There are all sorts of cool things. If you want to learn, you want to eat, you want to do the things – we got you,” says festival creative director Pat Nourse. Cookbook author Julia Busuttil Nishimura will lead a snack-punctuated stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne for this year’s World’s Longest Brunch .
“It’s like the world’s most leisurely running club , except you’re walking and mostly eating,” says Nourse. At three different stops, guests will fill their plates with the likes of cinnamon buns, chive pancakes, and ham and gruyere tarts, plus their pick of the Ostro author’s cakes from a cake station. The World’s Longest Lunch , a festival signature, will also be led by a Melbourne-made star.
Curtis Stone is jetting in from his home in Los Angeles to prepare a three-course lunch for 1700 people at the sell-out event. International r.