Eventful eating

It’s easy to be paralysed by choice when confronted with the program for the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival. Indecision is likely to be festival-goers’ biggest problem next month, when some of the world’s finest chefs descend on the city, but with some events catering for a mere 15 people, she or he who hesitates to book is lost – or at least is left hungry and disgruntled.

The Langham Melbourne Masterclass series is the obvious place to access much of the international talent while also getting close to some home-grown stars. David Chang from Manhattan’s Momofuku Ssäm Bar, Massimo Bottura from Osteria Francescana in Italy, Parisian baker Gontran Cherrier and Copenhagen’s Mads Refslund are all on the bill this year. The line-up of local kitchen heroes includes Quay’s Peter Gilmore, Rockpool’s Neil Perry and Coda’s Adam D’Sylva, to name just a few.

Many of the international chefs are making the long-haul trip worth their while by taking part in other events around town. Chang, for example, will show why he is one of the few chefs in the world capable of giving fusion food a good name when he does his Korean/American thing at a dinner at Cumulus Inc, while Refslund will illustrate his love of foraged and wild foods at Circa, the Prince. Bottura will share his cooking philosophies at the Theatre of Ideas talkfest, hosted by Matt Preston in Federation Square. Spain’s Andoni Luis Aduriz, from Mugaritz, will take a turn in the hot seat, chewing the fat with his former head chef, Dan Hunter, now at Dunkeld’s Royal Mail. The duo are also teaming up for dinner at Hunter’s joint during the festival.

Those wanting to tap into the sudden interest in all things sake should probably check out Nobu Melbourne where the restaurant chain’s founder, Nobu Matsuhisa, is fronting the stoves with a dégustation-style dinner on 19 March for $190. Each course will be matched with a different sake.

Aside from the big-name attractions in the big city, regional Victoria is hosting some of the most interesting events in this year’s festival program. Ballarat chef Peter Ford is hosting a two-day event called Go The Whole Hog, an exploration of whole-carcass butchery. Held at Moranghurk, a historic 1840s property on the banks of the Moorabool River, the event (catering for up 30 people at $330 per person) will see participants staying, communal-style, in the old shearers’ quarters and learning to break down whole pig carcasses to make their own sausages, rillettes, terrines and bacon. They will also have the opportunity to bake bread in a wood-fired oven and, in between all this sweaty action, cool off with a dip in the nearby waterhole.

If fish is more your thing, chef James Redfern from Vines of Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsula is your man. Redfern’s Celebrate the Bay $55 lunch with matched wines will be on offer throughout the festival, with a four-course menu featuring seasonally available wild-caught fish – snapper, flounder, King George whiting – from the waters of Port Phillip Bay.
 
Meanwhile, at Sunnybrae in Birregurra, George Biron is celebrating produce of a different kind with Fearless Vampire Killers, featuring, you’ve guessed it, garlic. The “stinking rose” will be front and centre in the five-course lunches, matched with wine, on 20 and 21 March. The event will even have its own signature drink, the Gartini (yes, a garlic martini). Tickets are $110.

In the King Valley, three matriarchs from some of the region’s best-known Italian families – the Pizzini, the Politini and the Sartori clans – will be heading the Three Nonnas, a hands-on cooking class on 20 March tackling gnocchi, arancini and slow-roasted suckling pig. At $60 for the demonstration, including lunch (food only), it really is an offer you can’t refuse.

Getting in on the regional act is Echuca, which has an increasingly impressive foodie reputation. It’s making its mark on the festival with Flavours Afloat. Four riverboats, each boasting a different cooking team and a menu from one of four local restaurants – Oscar W’s, Ceres, Coriander and Morrisons – will set steam on the Murray on 13 March, before mooring together for dinner under the stars. Tickets range from $110 to $195 per person.

The World’s Longest Lunch on 12 March will be held simultaneously at 20 different locations across the state, the most poignant of which may be the one in recently fire-devastated Marysville, in Maryton Park (next to the Steavenson River), which was spared by the Black Saturday fires.

The Melbourne version of the Longest Lunch should be one of the best yet. A thousand-seat table will run the length of Little Bourke Street in Chinatown, and the three-course $115-meal will reflect its setting, paying tribute both to Melbourne’s Chinatown, one of the oldest in the Western world, and to the Chinese chefs who have been feeding the city since the 1850s.

South East Asia will also be celebrated at the revamped Hawkers’ Market held at the Queen Victoria Market from 15 to 17 March, with authentic street foods of Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Bali and izakaya-style snacks from Japan. This year’s sharper focus is a welcome return to form after recent years when the event seemed to have lost its way (and, in fact, its place in the festival).

At the other end of the scale, size-wise, an exploration and explanation of biodynamic farming practices is being held at Gertrude Street Enoteca on 20 March. Gourmet Traveller wine editor Max Allen will present some of the world’s best biodynamic wine, while fellow GT scribe Brigitte Hafner will finish the session (for up to 15 people, so be quick) with a dinner highlighting biodynamic produce.

Also worth a look are two new events, the Dumpling Crawl led by GT contributor Tony Tan through Melbourne’s Chinatown, and the Edible Garden, a collaboration between the Digger’s Club and Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Foundation that will see the City Square transformed into a giant vegie patch thick with rare and heirloom edible fruit, flowers and leaves. Just like the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival itself, the Edible Garden will offer plenty ripe for the picking, but the best bits are sure to disappear first.

Catch all these chefs and more at the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, 12-23 March 2010. To book tickets to events, call Ticketmaster on 136 100.

This article is from the February 2010 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller.