Food & Wine Festivals

8th May 2010

I really got my fill of food last weekend when I travelled to the Noosa Food & Wine Festival and then onto Adelaide for Tasting Australia.

At Noosa it was an action packed weekend of guest chefs converging with local chefs to celebrate Australia’s great food and wine. Our Nick Holloway of NuNu’s was one to team up with Dayle Merlo of Bistro C on the beach for a dinner of the best of coastal cuisine.

At the Celebration of Australia Food and Wine event in the park there were cooking demonstrations, food tastings, lectures and of course plenty of food, wine and entertainment.

With drawcards such as Mat Preston and George Colombaris of MasterChef fame, Greg Doyle of Pier NSW, Geoff Lindsay of Pearl Vic, Philip Johnson of Ecco Brisbane and Matt Moran of Aria NSW/QLD, the festival attracted over 8,000 people through the gates.

So off to Adelaide and straight to the Feast of the Senses in Elder’s park on the Torrens River. Wow! Over 20,000 people visited this event on that sunny Sunday. …and no wonder; I thought I would be there for an hour or so, but I just couldn’t leave the place. Apart from the great food and wine, the cooking demonstrations and the celebrities, I spent most of my time in the ‘Word of Mouth’ event hosted by Joanna Savill that covered food and wine related matters. I particularly enjoyed listening to the exuberant Peter Cundall talk on ripping up your lawn to grow vegetables. In his 80’s, what an inspiration?

Tasting Australia hosted a total of 45 events and at the Le Cordon Bleu Media awards it was the who’s who of food with Italy’s Antonio Carluccio, Ireland’s Paul Rankin, Rosemary Shager (Ladettes to Ladies) Anthony Worrell Thompson, Stephanie Alexander, Maggie Beer, Simon Bryant, Manu Feildel, Paul Mercurio, Ian Parmentier, Poh Ling Yeow, and Will Studd just to name a few.