C&G’s Guide to Melbourne Food and Wine Festival

Local Community

As we shed a tear for summer coming to an end, we pull ourselves together and look forward to all the autumn and winter foodie delights to come. Melbourne Food and Wine Festival kicks off the line-up in 2017, and C&G has all the highlights you need to make your visit the best one ever! 

About the festival

The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival evolved from one small idea in 1993 to a huge 200-event phenomenon across Melbourne metro and regional Victoria. The aim of the festival is to cultivate and nurture everything that makes Melbourne such a mecca of fabulous gastronomy. From food markets and the freshest of produce to world-renowned chefs and warm hospitality, the festival has become an iconic celebration of Melbourne’s truly unique foodie culture. This year’s program runs from March 31 to April 9.

Highlights

With so much to see and do, you need to do some serious planning and ticket-booking to fit everything in! From masterclasses to foodie discovery tours, there’s something to delight every calibre of tastebud. MoVida and Moritz are joining forces to host a Catalan style laneway party at Hosier Lane, while 316 Little Lonsdale Street is transforming itself into The House of Food and Wine, with a bar open daily and tons of sit-down dinners, wine tastings and block parties to keep your festival program pumping! 

If you’re looking to spice up your own cooking skills with some tips and tastes from the pros, you can experience the tricks of the Thai trade with the best Thai chef in the world, David Thomson of Long Chim, or push the boundaries with America’s Wylie Dufresne of wd~50 in New York. Browse all masterclasses here.

If you’re more vino-focused than foodie focused, Wine Weekend will be right up your alley. Explore the future of traditional wines with Langton’s Fine Wines, or discover the history and intimate connections of Australia’s most memorable wine producers at Makers and Muses. The festival program also incorporates 13 unique ‘food crawl’ tours under Crawl ‘n’ Bite. Each tour takes you to three iconic destinations to sample a signature dish and matched wine. Baysiders will also love Icons of St Kilda and Southside Wine, or exploring the city with Late Night Bar Crawl or Laneways of Melbourne

Longest Lunches

A signature experience of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival has to be the ‘longest lunches’ series. Squeezed into the city where possible, Carlton’s Lygon Street and St Kilda’s Luna Park play host to unique lunches, while many will take to regional Victorian settings. Putting the spotlight on the Bayside offering, of course, St Kilda’s Longest Lunch is hosted by HEAT (Hospitality Education and Training Program), which offers a 12 week training course for young people out of work or disengaged from mainstream education. The homeless lunch focuses on empowerment and combating homelessness and disengagement issues in individuals across Melbourne. You are welcomed to attend yourself, or shout someone else a lunch who may be homeless, unemployed or struggling in one way or another. The lunch is all about community values, acceptance and a shared passion for change. Find out more and shout tickets at the website

Overwhelmed?! We are too! Swing past your local Bank of Melbourne branch to pick up a hard copy of the full event program, or check the schedule out online. Keep Chisholm & Gamon in the loop of your foodie adventures throughout the festival, on Facebook and Twitter.