Melbourne Food and Wine Festival

words by niall roeder

The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival returns in 2017 for the 25^th time and brings with it 10 days of chef royalty, unexpected dining experiences and delightful gastronomic piggery.

What started out as a modest food gathering in ’93 has evolved into a culinary fiesta with over 300 bespoke events going down across the state. Unlike your traditional fenced area festival set-up, the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is a free range citywide celebration, with sit-downs, tastings, crawls, classes, pop-ups and markets being held at restaurants, alleys, food trucks, basements and rooftops across Melbourne, and even some regional spots.

Cheers to the weekend and what a beautiful one ahead at that. Come join us for a glass by the Yarra when 30 of the state’s best wineries pop up for city cellar. Straight from vintage no less! #twoweekstogo ???@hostplus #secretingredient #vicwine ?: @theresa_harrison_photography

A post shared by Melbourne Food and Wine Fest (@melbfoodandwine) on Mar 17, 2017 at 1:14am PDT

Festivals are a dime a dozen these days, especially food and wine festivals, and for good reason too. We, the people, the hungry people, love them. Festivals inevitably present us with a smorgasbord of delicious things to eat and drink and this one is no different. We look at the top picks for Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.

Masterclass
Celebrating 15 years of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, a bunch of chefs that have featured in the top 50 list in the past will be dishing up tricks of the trade. This is an incredible opportunity to learn mad skills from food Jedi Masters, like Heston Blumenthal’s right-hand man, Ashley Palmer-Watts; renowned Italian cooking innovator, Carlo Cracco; and Tokyo’s inventive rising sun, Zaiyu Hasegawa.

Melbourne Burger Invitational 2.0
A greasy and fierce competition searching for a hamburger worthy of being crowned king, this year’s line-up includes 1090 Burgers, Beatbox Kitchen, Mr Burger, Royal Stacks, YOMG!, and the Sydney blow-ins, BL Burgers.

Crawl ‘n’ Bite
Experience progressive snacking through Melbourne’s vibrant dining scene with one of 13 special bar, restaurant and neighbourhood crawls. The crawls are based in Fitzroy’s wine bars, St Kilda’s seaside restaurants and the city’s laneways, and take attendees with each stop serving up a signature dish and matched drink.

Rootstock Sydney x MFWF
Sydney’s successful organic wine and food festival is debuting in Melbourne and with an abundance of natural wine, sustainable seafood and wild fermented beers, it’s sure to score.

Melbourne Food and Wine Festival 2017 runs from March 31 – April 9.

Restaurant Express menus are now on our site. Grab some friends and get out your to-dine list. Bespoke $40 two-course lunch menus including a glass of Victorian wine or beer. Like this beauty of a lunch @pastusorestaurant! Event link in our bio @dimmi #mfwf

A post shared by Melbourne Food and Wine Fest (@melbfoodandwine) on Mar 7, 2017 at 6:37pm PST