Top Five Events from the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival 2013

The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival Urban Coffee Farm
This year was a particularly enjoyable Melbourne Food and Wine Festival for me - as you'll see below, one of the events was of special emotional resonance for me and my family - and I wanted to share my top five MFWF events here on the blog, listed in chronological order (for those keeping score, I was a Festival guest at the World's Longest Lunch and a Treasury Wine Estates guest at the Seppelt lunch, but I paid for the other events).

1. World's Longest Lunch

The Festival kicked off with the World's Longest Lunch, taking place on a glorious Friday afternoon in Fitzroy Gardens. I'd never been to the event before and was surprised at how smoothly it ran and how good the food was, given that 1,230 people were being served a three course lunch in a park simultaneously (kudos to Peter Rowland for an epic job well done).

The menu this year was designed by two of the grandest dames in Australian food, Maggie Beer AM and Stephanie Alexander OAM. I was sitting three seats down from them and was appropriately starstruck. Maggie B rocking some killer shades!



2. Meatopia

The Middle Park Hotel was home one afternoon to Meatopia, a festival of rare breed meat and beer. I went with my Warialda Belted Galloway-smitten partner and a friend of ours, and in addition to Warialda beef and other meat treats we ate some terrific spit roasted Gropig Wessex Saddleback suckling pig in a bun with morcilla and apricot aioli. There was also a BBQ throwdown between Melbourne Pub Group's Paul Wilson and Dandelion's Geoff Lindsay, with Lindsay narrowly winning the vote and taking home the trophy and the glory.



3. The Everleigh Cocktail Tram

Despite never having dined on it, I've had a longtime fascination with Melbourne's Colonial Tramcar Restaurant. So when I saw in the MFWF program that Fitzroy's superlative cocktail bar The Everleigh would be running three nights in the restaurant tram using their new cocktail trolleys, booking tickets was a no-brainer.

Despite the heatwave the air conditioning in the tram was working just fine, and we settled down into the plush velvet seats and peered out between the fringed curtains. I may have clapped my hands with glee as the tram shuddered into motion, tracing the 112 route down through South Melbourne, Albert Park, Middle Park and along St Kilda's Esplanade and back again. Everleigh owner/manager Michael Madrusan and his dapper team did a great job mixing up Daiquiris, Negronis and Martinis (the Martinis were made using the silky new 666 Autumn Butter Vodka from 666 Pure Tasmanian Vodka) to a crackly jazz soundtrack. As my companion J quipped, all we needed to complete the Hercule Poirot ambiance was a MURDER. Perhaps fortunately, the worst that happened was a slight headache the next morning.

An unforgettable experience.




4. Salchicha De Bonegilla

Another event in the MFWF program which caught my eye was the sausage making workshop at the Bonegilla Migrant Experience, up near Albury/Wodonga. I quickly consulted my parents and my aunt Paola (of Italy on my Mind fame) and booked four tickets for us.


Our reason for being so keen to attend a workshop three hours' drive from Melbourne was the fact that it was being held at Bonegilla, the migrant centre that received and trained migrants to Australia during the post-WWII immigration boom. Between 1947 and 1971, over 300,000 migrants from more than 50 countries called Bonegilla their first Aussie home - including my own Italian grandparents upon their arrival in Australia in 1950. The only section of the camp remaining is Block 19 which now is now a museum, included on the National Heritage List. The workshop would be the perfect excuse for us to make a pilgrimage to a location that had such special significance for our family, particularly as we'd just marked the first anniversary of my Nonno's passing.

Visiting Block 19 was terribly moving. I can strongly recommend visiting, even if you're not one of the estimated 1.5 million Australians descended from migrants who spent time at Bonegilla.


Paola has written a wonderfully detailed blog post filled with photos and anecdotes about Nonna and Nonno's boat voyage from Italy. They arrived at Station Pier in Melbourne on 12 May 1950, and a train whisked them up to Bonegilla the following morning. My Nonna was put in an accommodation hut like the one pictured above (prior to taking in migrants, Bonegilla had been an army barracks), sharing the room with 19 other women. Because the camp was overcrowded at the time, my Nonno had to sleep in a tent with three other men. My Nonna cried every day she was at Bonegilla, desperately missing Italy and her brothers and sisters.

Nonna's voice is always tinged with dismay (okay, disgust) when she recounts how tasteless she found Australian food in 1950. Everything was cooked with lard/dripping, and if you wanted olive oil you could only buy it at the pharmacy.


It was fascinating to read the original recipes from the camp's Mess Hall. In addition to the mutton stew with lard and "meat salad" recipes below, we winced at descriptions of 'breakfast - mince on toast (yield 50 serves)', 'pineapple butter sauce (for tournedos) - add 1/2 cup canned pineapple juice...', and 'add the gourmet touch - mandarine marinade with 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup orange marmalade, 1/2 cup clove or finely chopped garlic, 1/2 levels tspn. powdered ginger'. How times have changed!


The sausage making workshop was held in Camp 19's mess hall by Lutz Peters, a butcher from Albury/Wodonga who was born in Germany in 1949. He emigrated with his family in 1952 and spent his third birthday in Bonegilla Migrant Centre, and eventually followed in his father's footsteps and became a continental butcher.

As you can see from the photos below, we had great fun at the workshop.




5. Feast Beneath the Seppelt Vines

The final MFWF event I attended was held at Seppelt winery. A group include b-f-K and I were ferried in a coach from Melbourne to Great Western in the Grampians wine region, where we were taken on an extensive tour of the winery by Seppelt's viticulturalists and vignerons: we picked Shiraz grapes in the vineyard, crushed Riesling grapes in a basket press and tasted Chalambar Shiraz.



The original vineyard was established in 1865, and what makes Seppelt unique is the underground labyrinth known as the Drives. More than three kilometres of tunnels dug by hand in the soft granite underneath the vines by local miners over 60 years. The Drives have been used for nearly 150 years for sparkling wine maturation, and are capable of storing over 1.5 million bottles.

Our tour culminated in an exploration of the Drives and a banquet lunch for 70 people in one of the tunnels, deep underground. An incredibly atmospheric dining venue! Despite the challenging catering conditions the food was very good quality (congratulations to the caterers Rue Cler Market on doing a terrific job - loved the local yabby and the pressed duck salad), the mood was jovial and we were treated to some excellent Seppelt wines, including some pre-release 2012 Drumborg Pinot Noir and Riesling, a comparison of the 2008 and 1999 vintages of St Peters Shiraz, and the 2004 Show Sparkling Shiraz.




All in all, a satisfying and fitting end to a very busy fortnight. What were your highlights/lowlights?

MFWF 2011: The rest of the festival madness

Okay, here's one epic megapost covering the rest of what I got up to during the twelve action-packed days of this year's Melbourne Food & Wine Festival (apart from the Roy Choi dinner and the Sommeliers Australia Long Lunch which I've already written about).

Broadsheet Cafe popped up for the duration of the festival in the tiny site opposite Gingerboy that housed the Baker D. Chirico pop-up last year. I went along to the launch party. The cafe had a rotating cast of baristas from specialist coffee cafes around town - I popped in on one of the days Dead Man Espresso was calling (and pulling) the shots. They were serving up EARL Canteen sandwiches, as well as Heilala vanilla crème brûlée macarons from LuxBite that were criminally good.


Crown hosted a diverse group of international chefs, dubbed the Stars of Spice, during the Festival. I was invited by the Festival to lunch with the chefs down at T'Gallant, which was a good opportunity for the chefs to get out of the kitchens and to see a bit of the countryside. I had an animated conversation with Pedro Miguel Schiaffino, the 'jungle chef' of Peru, about the horsemeat brouhaha that erupted in Australia last year, and about how he prepares guinea pig meat.


The spread they put on for us at T'Gallant's La Baracca Trattoria included a lovely panzanella salad with shaved kefalograviera, and blue eye done three ways (pan seared fillet, poached cheek and belly sashimi) with shaved fennel and black sesame salad.


Oh and the slooooow roasted sirloin of beef (50 degrees for 14 hours) came with a spiced yoghurt crust, a toasted bread puree and a brilliant preserved lemon grape dressing. Suit you, sir!


An event I went along to with Mum and Dad was the Middle Eastern Bakery Tour along Sydney Road ($45 per head). It's been running for years and is good fun, whether it's your first visit to Sydney Road or your fiftieth.


Behind the scenes at A1 Bakery.


At Pamukkale Bakery (Turkish) we enjoyed freshly baked simit with grape molasses.


These spinach and haloumi pies from Amir Bakery (Iraqi) were PERFECTION. I can't stop thinking about them and must go back for more.


At El Fayha Sweets (Lebanese) we learnt just how much sugar and butter goes into baklava and 'princess jewels' pastries (you don't want to know!).


Later that afternoon I met Emily and went along to South Afrikaans, a South African wine tasting event held by Sommeliers Australia at La Vita Buona ($35 per head). We enjoyed pinotage, cabernet sauvignon and chenin blanc, but my favourite wine was definitely the puntastic Goats Do Roam.


Later in the week I went along to Reinterpreting Dessert ($150 per head), the collaboration between Der Raum and desserts gurus Burch & Purchese. Five cocktails and five desserts, it was madness I tell you.


Isn't it pretty? Forgive me for not remembering the precise ingredients, but I seem to recall it involved cheesecake and two kinds of cherries. It was matched with the Chicago 2300, one of the new cocktails on Der Raum's autumn menu.


This one was probably my favourite, as I loved the way the mint lifted the dish: a mint mousse sphere with lime shortbread, mint tapioca, compressed cucumber and sugar mint leaf. It was matched with Der Raum's Tzatziki Sour, which had been whipped up from its usual liquid state into a mousse-ier texture and sealed with a silver foil lid, like an old-fashioned milk bottle.


Another impressive dessert was the apple sugar tube which contained burnt vanilla cream, explosive hazelnut crumble (helloooooo Pop Rocks!) and acidulated apple. Matched with an appley cocktail that came in its own cardboard box (that looked suspiciously like a McDonald's hot apple pie container).

By the time the last course arrived (involving chocolate truffle and truffle truffle) we were all COMPLETELY wired from hours of consuming sugar. Getting to sleep that night was not easy!


I was invited along one morning to Breakfast Wine, a wine tasting and breakfast held at Le Traiteur at 8am (!!!). Because it was a working day I had only a few baby sips (obvs), but enjoyed the intimate group and the way Ben and Dan challenged us to think outside the box when it came to matching wines with breakfast (for example, the idea of pinot noir makes a bit more sense when you consider the tannins that exist in your mug of English Breakfast). I also loved loved loved the taste of the 2009 Greystone Dry Riesling from the Waipara.


The other event I was invited along to was the 19th Century Decadence Degustation which was served on the balcony of the historic Werribee Mansion. We were put up in very comfortable rooms in the adjacent Mansion Hotel & Spa and had breakfast the next morning in the hotel's restaurant, Joseph's.


Joseph's newly-appointed executive chef Marcus Levy designed the 19th century menu (think sorrel and spinach soup with sheep's milk curd, quail stuffed with chicken liver, pheasant, venison etc). It was a perfect night for dining al fresco, and the surrounds were pretty damn magnificent.


As you can imagine, by the end of the twelve day festival I was BROKEN. The last event I attended (before collapsing in a heap) was pleasantly low-key: the Forgotten Fruits High Tea at Southpaw.


The event was $25 per head for high tea with a pot of tea, or $35 for high tea with a jug of Pimms. I gladly went with the tea option, (a) because my charming tea companion is expecting her first child, and (b) because I couldn't face any more alcohol.


The high tea included Daylesford charcuterie, scones, finger sandwiches (I particuarly liked the one with smoked chicken, crab apple chutney and chive crème) and a few sweets (including a lovely gooseberry and toffee tartlette).


The forgotten fruits preserves we got to try included rosehip, apple and date chutney, crab apple, pear and maple chutney, elderberry and rhubarb jam and cherry laurel, shadberry, vanilla bean and brandy jam. I liked the last one so much I bought a little jar to take home.


So there you have it! The MFWF event I wish I'd gone to was one of the Bombas and Parr events: despite all the hipster hype, the Sweet Architextural event they put on at the Espy with Burch & Purchese sounds and looks like it was a riot, or alternatively the Funerals and Food event sounded equal parts bizarre and interesting. And hey, maybe next year I'll finally make it along to some of the Masterclasses.

Melbourne Gastronome, over and out!