Good Food Month comes to Melbourne

With every state now hosting food events showing off the produce and wares of its land, The Age Good Food Month festival is like the Big Day Out of the food calendar. Sticking to the Eastern seaboard, events have already taken place in Brisbane, Sydney and Canberra. Now it’s our turn. From the 1-30 November culinary activities will be taking place across city because it seems we just can’t get enough of the good food stuff.

One of the key events to the festival is the Night Noodle Market, set against the backdrop of the banks of the Yarra at Alexandra Gardens. Longrain, Wonderbao, and Mamak along with other noodle-proficient establishments will serve stalwarts of Asian cuisine from the 18-30 November.

Some of Melbourne’s finest establishments will be holding one night only dinners throughout the month – Shane Dehlia of Maha and Benjamin Cooper of Chin Chin will challenge each other to a fiery duel at ‘Spice Smackdown’, chillies at dawn! (Not actually dawn, it starts at 5pm on November 26). Grossi Florentino with the aptly titled “not another bloody festival dinner’ featuring dishes from past guest chefs and Auguste Escoffier makes an appearance at Steer Bar and Grill with his best beef dishes – just don’t expect to see Escoffier himself at the pass, but you get the idea.

The international contingent is well represented also; tickets to see Rene Redzepi of Noma in Copenhagenwere snapped up quicker than Britney in Vegas – he had a packed Wheeler Centre eating from the palm of his hand last week before jetting back to Denmark, but never fear you haven’t missed out completely. Daniel Patterson of Coi in San Francisco partners up with his pal Ben Shewry for a collaborative dinner at Attica onNovember 11. Alex Atala from D.O.M, Sao Paolo – ranked number six best restaurant in the world – will be working his Latin magic at the Stokehouse on November 26. Both of these gastronomic juggernauts come laden with signed books for you to purchase either separately or as part of your dinner package.

We have all had sinister thoughts when it comes to being served a dodgy plate, however far from culinary revenge ‘Shoot the Chef’ is a photographic exhibition showing cuisiniers in their natural habitat. The exhibition is on at Rialto Towers until November 29 and given what chefs do for a living, this one is not for the squeamish.

These are but mere grains of sand on the beach that is Good Food Month activities – there are plenty of breakfast, lunch and dinner events, classes, markets, sustainable food and family focused fun times to be had.

Use your Melbourne savvy festival scheduling approach to see how best to ravage your tastebuds – grab your guide from The Age Good Food Month website and start planning for the rest of November.

The Age Good Food Month runs from 1-30 November at various locations.
For more info and tickets visit goodfoodmonth.com.