The Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, served up by principal partner Bank of Melbourne and destination partner Visit Victoria, returns with a blockbuster 2021 calendar across the city and regional Victoria. The newly expanded festival year kicks off with a suite of signature and new events in March. This will be followed in winter by the festival’s core programming for the year, a two-week festival all about Melbourne, and then in the spring the food and drink of regional Victoria will for the first time have a festival all its own.

March sees the return of some of the festival’s best-loved signature events, which were postponed in 2020. The Bank of Melbourne World’s Longest Lunch, one of the city’s most anticipated annual events, returns with an all-star line-up of culinary legends, and newcomer the Bank of Melbourne World’s Longest Brunch will celebrate the city’s renowned breakfast culture the next morning. There will be special events across the city, and for the first time, Melbourne’s western suburbs will be the hero of 12 Westside Crawl events.

“Coming hot on the heels of the success of the New Year Street Feasts program, we’re thrilled to join in the roaring recovery of the city with a full calendar of great Melbourne Food & Wine Festival events. Kicking off with the festival’s blockbuster, the World’s Longest Lunch, along with what we hope is a new Melbourne signature event in the making, the World’s Longest Brunch, it’s the first of three big tentpoles for the festival across 2021. We can’t wait.,” - Anthea Loucas Bosha, CEO of Food + Drink Victoria, the not-for-profit parent company behind MFWF.

Visit Victoria CEO, Brendan McClements said: “Victoria’s renowned restaurants and bars are enthusiastically welcoming visitors in 2021 and launching the iconic Melbourne and Food & Wine Festival is a great milestone for our hospitality industry.  This year, the festival extends beyond the signature World’s Longest Lunch to include a World’s Longest Brunch as well as a winter festival and regional showcase in spring so there’s something for every palate.”

The much-loved World’s Longest Lunch returns on Friday 12 March, bringing together three of Melbourne’s culinary masters – Stephanie Alexander, Philippe Mouchel and Jacques Reymond – to deliver an outdoor feast for more than a thousand guests in Melbourne’s Treasury Gardens set against the backdrop of the city skyline.

Bank of Melbourne Chief Executive Mark Melvin said: “The Bank of Melbourne World’s Longest Lunch is always a highlight on the epicurean calendar and we're excited to see the addition of The Bank of Melbourne World's Longest Brunch with Kate Reid and Nathan Toleman, to the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival program."

World’s Longest Lunch attendees will also be given a hit-list of great Melbourne CBD bars to kick on to following lunch, continuing Melbourne Food & Wine Festival’s commitment to drive business to venues in a part of the state hit hardest by the pandemic. Make it a glass at City Wine Shop or Embla, a pot at the Cricketer’s or Garden State, or something a bit higher up the shelf from the likes of Gimlet or Nick & Nora’s.

In a first for Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, Bank of Melbourne World’s Longest Brunch will take place in Treasury Gardens on Saturday 13 March. The menu at this new event is designed by Lune Croissant’s Kate Reid in collaboration with Melbourne’s café king Nathan Toleman, whose midas touch at venues such as Apte, Three Bags Full, Two Birds One Stone, Top Paddock, Higher Ground, Kettle Black and Liminal has shaped the way Victoria breakfasts.

The March 2021 program also includes more than 50 events designed in partnership with restaurants, bars and cafes around the city that had been set to run before the pandemic.

Highlights of the 2021 Special Events Program include:

• Lankan Lourinha  O Tama Carey of Sydney’s Lankan Filling Station collaborating with Matt McConnell at Bar Lourinha on a Sri LankanPortuguese spectacular
• Black Star x Rain Room  Melbourne’s most atmospheric immersive installation meets the world’s favourite watermelon cake
• Conveniently Tokyo at Toyko Tina  You might not get to Japan this year but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the wonder that is Japanese conveniencestore eats
• Adrian Richardson’s suckling pig feast  The La Luna chef’s wildly popular festival signature expands to Bouvier
• Cheese Dreams  Maker & Monger goes noholds-barred in a cheese extravaganza at Prahran Market
• Yum cha at the Flower Drum  Spin the lazy Susan in style at Australia’s most celebrated Cantonese restaurant

Westside Crawls, a collaboration between Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, Eat Drink Westside and six western Melbourne councils, is another addition to the 2021 March program. The 12 Crawls go through western Melbourne suburbs including: West Footscray, Seddon, Moonee Ponds, Ascot Vale, Spotswood, Altona, Caroline Springs, Melton, Sunshine, St Albans, Werribee and Wyndham Harbour.

Highlights of the 2021 Westside Crawl program include:

• Sunshine Crawl – An exploration through Melbourne’s Vietnamese heartland, stopping in at Xuan Banh Cuon, Gojo Café, Café Sunshine and SalamaTea.
• West Footscray Crawl – An adventure in one of Melbourne’s most dynamic culinary neighbourhoods, visiting Zymurgy, Harley and Rose, and Chibog.

Melbourne Food & Wine Festival is supported by Victoria’s tourism and major events company Visit Victoria and principal partner Bank of Melbourne, which has supported the Festival every year since the bank was relaunched to the Victorian market in 2011.

Tickets for the 2021 Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, Bank of Melbourne’s World’s Longest Lunch and Bank of Melbourne World’s Longest Brunch went up on sale from 9am on Friday 12 February 2021. Pre-sale tickets are available for 2020 ticket holders and MFWF subscribers.

Booking Melbourne Food & Wine Festival events in advance is essential to keep the celebrations running smoothly and safely. All Melbourne Food & Wine Festival events have COVID-safe plans in place which can be accessed at mfwf.com.au, and all partner venues are required to have their own COVID-safe plans to be part of the program.

Melbourne Food & Wine Festival’s March program runs 12-31 March; for full program details and all ticket sales please visit mfwf.com.au; follow MFWF on Instagram at @melbfoodandwine for daily updates.

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Shannon Blanchard, shannon@thecru.agency or 0432 543 377