Our magnificent weekend

What better way for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival (MFWF) to celebrate its 20th year than with a magical weekend of events all along the city’s most famous river.

The Riverside Opening Weekend will run on March 3-4 and is sure to confirm that our patch of Melbourne is a culinary leader of not only in this state, but of the country and of the world.

In total there are more than 30 events in just one action-packed weekend, running along the river from Federation Square all the way down to NewQuay in Docklands.

All events running over the opening weekend are listed in the following pages.

With so much on, all tastes are catered for, and with all the weekends’ events listed within these pages – there is no excuse not to get down and enjoy the festivities.

The hardest decision for all those food and wine lovers is where to start?

Perhaps the best place is the Festival Hub, which will be conveniently located at Queensbridge Square.

The Hub will act as a home base for the festival, with art displays, lunchtime live cooking demonstrations and the MFWF Greenhouse by Joost.

The Greenhouse is new to the festival and is the brainchild of Joost Bakker. The Greenhouse’s vision is to create a restaurant that is entirely waste-free and recyclable, with the aim of proving the possibility of a world without waste.

From there it is an easy stroll to any of the events and happenings on the south side of the river. Federation Square Favourites is a free event, as is the entertainment at Southgate and its tasting plates are sure to lure you.

There is another free event out the front of Crown and from there you’ll be able to see the fun happening at WTC Wharf. But how will you get to it? The easiest way will be by the MFWF free river shuttle service.

Once there you can enjoy any number of activities within one of Melbourne’s newest locations. Then jump back onto the shuttle to get to another, South Wharf.

South Wharf promenade is running four events over the weekend, to ensure you will be entertained and, more importantly, full.

Thankfully the river shuttle doesn’t stop there, with further stops in Docklands at Yarra’s Edge and NewQuay.

Both of these precincts of Docklands are offering food and activities from their range of restaurants, which again is sure to please all palets.

It could fill you just reading about it, but the best part of our weekend is once it’s all over the rest of the festival begins!