Free pizza, two days of pastry: An insider’s picks of Melbourne Food and Wine Festival

A beloved television chef revives his seminal Collingwood restaurant from 40-plus years ago. Some of the biggest names in Slavic and Balkan cooking come together for a full-throttle throwdown over the grill. And the world’s leading Samoan fine diner cruises into town. It’s full steam ahead for Melbourne Food & Wine Festival 2026 and its program of more than 200 events.

To help navigate all the long lunches and bountiful brunches taking place from March 20 to 29, we asked Rick Stephens, the festival’s head of content, for his top picks. Some are free, others require you to book ahead. For more information and tickets, visit melbournefoodandwine.com.au.

Something Saucy: The Pizza Party (free)

Can I interest you in 1000 slices of free pizza? Luca Muscato and Marco Salzano, the radical southern Italian talents from Carlton pasta hot spot Super Norma, are back at it this year’s festival and giving away more of their excellent Italian food. For 2026, their namesake dish, pasta alla Norma, becomes an eggplant, tomato and cheese pizza with a little help (and a lot of dough) from fellow Carlton pals Leonardo’s Pizza Palace. In addition to the 1000 free slices, the crew is also putting on 800 free Bloody Marys for anyone who thinks 11.30am on a Thursday is better with a brunchtime cocktail in hand.

Leonardo’s Pizza Palace, 29 Grattan Street, Carlton, Thursday, March 26, 11.30am until stocks last

Slav-a-cue

Eat Pierogi Make Love is holding its second Balkan-influenced barbecue at the Brunswick East restaurant, led by chef Ola Gladysz. We’re talking plenty of grilled seafood, slow-baked lamb shoulder, pierogi in abundance and her signature kaszanka – the fan-favourite black pudding and sauerkraut combo from last year that frankly has no business knocking around my head as much as it still does. Internet sensation and chef Daniel Dobra and MasterChef’s Snezana Calic join Gladysz in the kitchen, combining their Balkan and western Slavic backgrounds for a party like no other.

Eat Pierogi Make Love, 161 Lygon Street, Brunswick East, Saturday, March 21 and Sunday, March 22, various sittings

Clichy: Original Food in the French Manner

I can’t be the only millennial who picked up their foundational cooking skills from daytime telly master, celebrated chef and now social media star Iain “Huey” Hewitson. So to have him reviving his influential Collingwood restaurant Clichy is a treat for Australians of all generations. For Huey’s exclusive festival appearance, he’ll be joining the team at Carlton’s Bistra and serving up a four-course menu inspired by the dishes of Clichy. The collab also coincides with the launch of Huey’s memoir, Who Called the Cook a Bastard?

Bistra, 157 Elgin Street, Carlton, Monday, March 23-Thursday, March 26, 5.30pm-8.45pm

Lunch with Helen Goh

This year, longtime Ottolenghi collaborator, international food columnist and celebrated baker Helen Goh takes to the stage with fellow pastry wiz Emelia Jackson for a discussion about life in baking. You can be there, too, with a three-course lunch in front of you which looks something like this: prawn sambal buns, puttanesca galette, red curry chicken and vegetable pies, Dutch baby with mortadella, Goh’s very addictive chewy cheese puffs, plus more signature dishes from her first solo cookbook, Baking and the Meaning of Life. Let’s Goh!

Federation Square, corner of Swanston and Flinders streets, Melbourne, Sunday, March 29, noon-4pm

JP Anglo x Serai Kitchen

The only thing better than Filipino food pioneer JP Anglo cooking in Melbourne is the fact that he’s doing it with Serai chef Ross Magnaye. For one evening, Anglo brings everything there is to love about his Manila restaurant, Sarsa, and its sibling restaurant Kooya in Dubai to the beating heart of Melbourne. Together with Magnaye, it’s magic in motion: punchy plates of sizzling and pork-rich sisig, barbecued chicken inasal and Filipino flavours dialled up to 11.

Serai Kitchen, 7 Racing Club Lane, Melbourne, Wednesday, March 25, 5.30-8pm and 8.30pm-11pm

Tala at Stokehouse

Chef Henry Onesemo brings his three-hat smash hit Auckland restaurant, Tala, to Melbourne, and with it a rare opportunity to try Samoan food in a fine-dining context. He’ll be reimagining the flavours of his heritage through a modern lens and serving it all up in Stokehouse’s serene beachside dining room. Exactly what’s on the menu is still under lock and key, but diners can expect the likes of Onesemo’s umu chicken – a traditional technique whereby hot rocks cook the bird from the inside out, all within a banana leaf wrap.

Stokehouse, 30 Jacka Boulevard, St Kilda, Tuesday, March 24, for dinner, Wednesday, March 25, for lunch

Pizza Pronto: James Lowe at Figlia

It wasn’t long after announcing London chef James Lowe’s appearance at MFWF that it sold out, but there’s another opportunity to catch the Lyle’s founder in action. At Pizza Pronto, his second festival pop-up, Lowe promises a clam pizza, feisty dippers and his spin on the Hawaiian, which comes loaded with Scotch bonnet peppers, grilled pineapple, red onion and the cured pork product guanciale – and somehow feels right at home down under.

Figlia, 335 Lygon Street, Brunswick East, Thursday, March 26, sittings from 6pm until 10.30pm

Baker’s Dozen (free)

This two-day baking and caking extravaganza closes this year’s festival – and boy is it big. You’ve got Sydney bread royalty A.P Bakery tapping Melbourne’s Oji House for an MFWF-exclusive collab. You’ve got Melbourne’s most formidable bakeries, including but not limited to Raya, Hector’s Bakery, Lulu and Me, Lune, Madeleine De Proust, Kudo, Masses Bagels, Monforte Viennoiserie and Morning Market. You’ve got your very own butter butlers ready and waiting to lay it on thick atop this season’s hottest hot cross buns. And you’ve got baking superstar Emelia Jackson, author Helen Goh, international baking sensation Phil Khoury and Tarts Anon’s Gareth Whitton taking to the main stage for demonstrations, giveaways and talks that you won’t want to miss.

Federation Square, corner of Swanston and Flinders streets, Melbourne, Saturday, March 28 and Sunday, March 29, 10am-3pm