Highlights of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival

March 1999

So many meals, so many chefs demonstrating, so many products to taste. Where to start and how to maintain your appetite during the three week gastronomic marathon that is known as the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival.

After seven years the Festival has become so popular that events book out quickly.

Fortunately there is still space at the Seasonal Slow Banquet, a bacchanalian feast prepared by chefs Bill Marchetti, Valerio Nucci and Robert Castellani at the Metro Craft Centre on Saturday March 27. The Slow Food Movement has been quietly gathering strength in Melbourne since first emerging in the Festival with their Top Ten Slow hits last year. This year's feast will showcase Melbourne as the "first official Slow City outside Italy", and will be a grand affair in medieval style with a giant table groaning with food, covered by white linen, lit by candelabra with wandering minstrels and fine Italian and Australian wines.

There will also be the opportunity to taste some free-range pork, which is raised in Northern NSW but is not commercially available. Pig farmer Craig O'Reagan, has been breeding this variety for his own and a few chefs use, including Bill Marchetti. This type of pig takes longer to mature than normal pigs and carries more fat, making it juicier, tastier and more tender than normal.

But there will also be prime Black Angus beef, duck, Ligurian style shellfish salad and an abundance of autumn fruit and vegetables sourced by Cameron Russell of the Queen Victoria Market. The event is being co-ordinated by Ros Harvey of Epicure Catering, phone 1800 646 455.

Matteo's Endless Lunch with guest chef Raymond Capaldi is one of the great Festival events despite being a bit of a misnomer. It's much more than a lunch, it's also dinner, a walk in the gardens and, what's more the chance to debate, hear music and play trivial pursuit. This year a panel including John Elliott and Colin Lovitt will discuss if smoking should be banned in restaurants. Herald Sun columnist Bob Hart has the unenviable task of trying to moderate. The day starts with canapes at 1pm, a long four course lunch till about 4pm, a walk in the nearby Edinburgh Gardens accompanied by champagne, then back for a couple of hours to debate, win and lose friends and lovers, then - dinner of five courses from 7pm. Last year chef Raymond Capaldi did not leave the kitchen until 3am. Bookings for March 28, 9481 1177

A smaller but no less special event is Lunch with Gilbert Lau at Flower Drum, one of Australia's finest restaurants. On March 24 and 31, Lau is designing a menu of at least 8 dishes, including stuffed baby abalone; South of the River Delight, a dish combining chicken, sea cucumber and prawns; quail breast and duck liver sausage and a "genuine" wonton soup made from live shrimps, all dishes which Lau will explain to his guests. A chef and restaurateur of more than 30 years experience Lau says that he still gets nervous in preparing special menus like this one. - a wonderful opportunity for anyone passionate about food, wine and restaurants.

One event which booked out very fast which I'd love to be at is The Renaissance Dinner at the Grossi Florentino on March 23. The Grossi family got the keys to Florentino at the weekend and will be open this week with the scion of the family, Guy Grossi, at the stoves. Everyone's curious to try their food in one of Melbourne's best-loved dining rooms. Meanwhile patriarch, Pietro Grossi, an acclaimed chef brought out from Italy in 1956 by my grandparents, is watching the kitchen at Caffe Grossi in South Yarra, "I don't do much these days, just scream a lot," he told me. Florentino is also booked out lunch and dinner in Restaurant Week.

More fine Italian food, across the Yarra, at Southbank's Scusa Mi, where Simon Humble will be preparing pots of risotto with Gabriele Ferron, whose family company produce Italy's finest risotto rice for the Night of Risotto on March 17. The menu will include four very special rice dishes including the Risotto del Presidente which Humble prepared for the Italian President. This dish is made with an aged Parmiggiana Reggiano and a balsamic vinegar based on a 1912 must and aged approximately 15 years. Aperitivi will include grissini made from rice flour and to finish there will be Humble's delicious biscotti and tartuffo (chocolate rice balls). Five Italian wines from the Veneto and neighboring regions will accompany the dishes. Bookings 9699 4111

Another very interesting beverage and food matching exercise will be done by Tony Rogalsky at the Carlton Brewhouse on March 25. Rogalsky was responsible for the first major dinner at this venue late last year and it was so successful that Peter Manders of CUB planned this dinner with two beers to match each of the four courses including hot smoked salmon with Carlton Cold, veal scallopine with mustard sauce, pepperonata and sage potatoes with Redback Original and Hoegaarden White and even a beer dessert -- nougat cream filled crepe to go with Negra Modelo and Belle-Vue Kriek. Bookings 9420 6800

Those who can't survive without their daily bread must try to get to the Breadmakers' Workshop on Wednesday March 24 at the William Angliss Institute, phone 9628 5008 and A Feast of Cheese offers a number of opportunities to learn about and taste the cheeses to match your bread. And don't forget the kids, cheeselovers aged between 7-14 can learn The ABC of Cheesemaking from cheesemaker Richard Thomas. Phone Koji 9815 2533.

More bread at Donovans Loaves and Fishes, presented by Epicure Catering on St Kilda beach, yet another clever idea from the indefatigable Gail Donovan a member of the Festival committee who comes up with special events every year. The symbolism of the biblical Loaves and Fishes extends beyond those who feed on March 19 as profits from the music, food, wine and fun filled soiree (6-8pm) will go towards a fairy penguin breeding program. There is a colony of penguins near St Kilda Pier, an area that the Council has cleaned and is hoping to re-vegetate to assist the breeding.

Bookings 9534 8221

Also, see Andrew Corrigan on Victorian wine regions.