2025 Annual Report Letter

It was another big year for Food + Drink Victoria with the team delivering a year-round calendar of events commencing with the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival in March. And what a Festival it was.

We launched the 10-day program at Melbourne Place with a glittering opening night party, presented by OpenTable, that saw the cream of Melbourne’s culinary scene come together.

The program kicked off with Melbourne’s own Curtis Stone, who was the headline chef for this year’s La Trobe Financial World’s Longest Lunch. A soft morning rain gave way to an afternoon of great eating at Kings Domain, where Stone served a menu reflecting his modern Australian cuisine including 1,600 tender beef cheeks. This year’s World’s Longest Brunch was a Sunday stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne that called at three stops, each catered by local food hero Julia Busuttil Nishimura. The menu included late-summer bruschetta, Persian herb frittata, and pistachio saffron cake.

One of this year’s most special guests was Richard Hart, the man behind Copenhagen’s Hart Bageri and Mexico City’s Green Rhino and considered the world’s best baker. His wildly popular pop-up at Melbourne Quarter was held for five days, attracting baking fanatics by the hundreds – some setting up camping chairs before sunrise just to secure his famous city loaf, a cardamom bun or a pan de Muerto.

Our Global Dining Series soared to new heights in 2025, courtesy of our partner Singapore Airlines, with residencies and collaborations from the world’s best chefs and restaurants. The famous St John restaurant, Tomos Parry’s incredible Basque-accented Brat and ramen sensation Supa Ya joined the Festival from London, Tokyo’s Sézanne and Florilège brought Japanese focus and French flair in equal measure, while hit Kyoto diner Kichi Kichi brought a loud and proud omurice spectacular. Other talent included Vaughan Mabee from Central Otago, Rome-based cook and author Alice Adams Carosi, and Vietnamese chef and author Anaïs Ca Dao van Manen.

Our Special Events program, presented by Square, was among the biggest and broadest in recent memory, taking in everything from South Indian banana-leaf feasts on the banks of the Yarra in Warburton to a lively gathering in Gippsland hay sheds and cocktail parties with celebrity penguins. There were events dedicated to tattooing, to hat-making, to crime, to photography, to war, to comedy, to percussion, and much, much more.

Our program also included three free events which expanded the scope of the program and created great buzz in the city, they included a pasta giveaway which was a collaboration with Leggo’s and Super Norma, a celebration of Mexican-Middle Eastern food at Wesley Place with Tom Sarafian and Raph Rashid and an event acknowledging the 80^th anniversary of the Melbourne-born icon, the dim sim – this was in collaboration with Emporium Melbourne. Three thousand free items of food were given away over these programs.

All roads would then lead us to Fed Square, with thanks to City of Melbourne, for the third iteration of Baker’s Dozen – a celebration of baking. Forty thousand attendees joined the celebration over two days to taste the extraordinary line-up of baked goods from Melbourne’s best purveyors including All Are Welcome, Lune, Monforte Viennoiserie, To Be Frank, Lumos, Raya and more plus Sydney’s A.P Bakery.

And finally, the Festival also collaborated with the Victoria Racing Club on their Autumn Racing Carnival transforming Flemington’s Front Lawn into a premium dining destination with restaurants including Lee Ho Fook, San Telmo, MoVida, and Tipo 00.

Thank you to our Destination Partner Visit Victoria and Principal Partner La Trobe  Financial for making the 2025 Melbourne Food & Wine Festival a knockout success, attended by 75,000 Festival goers.

The Drink Victorian campaign, an initiative designed to get more Victorian drinks on Victorian lists, returned for a fourth year. Food + Drink Victoria continues to deliver this campaign in collaboration with the Drinks Alliance, a group comprising of Cider Australia, Independent Brewers Association, Spirits Victoria, Wine Victoria and Food + Drink Victoria.

Program activity focused on an industry tasting day and content marketing as well as introducing an industry co-contribution model for the first time. Over 250 expressions of interest were received and 217 producers participated. The industry tasting day was held at Marvel Stadium in July and grew considerably year-on-year with over 1000 hospitality professionals attending (up from 920 attendees in 2024, 700 attendees in 2023, and 334 in 2022) – showing key interest from the industry to support this event and learn more about Victorian drinks, and ultimately stock them in their venues.

These results proved the success of the Drink Victorian program and the opportunity to continue to create trade opportunities between producers and Victorian venues. In marketing, a social content series The Switch, aimed at converting consumers to Victorian brands of their favourite drinks, achieved 650,000 views – a strong result given a modest budget. Thank you to Agriculture Victoria for supporting and believing in this initiative.

In August, we delivered our first industry forum, Hospitality Now. Held at Pt. Leo Estate, it was a forum for food and drink professionals and focused on the realities of doing business. Top players in Melbourne’s hospitality scene discussed challenges, opportunities and what they’ve learnt that propels their businesses forward. The keynote address was presented by our CEO Anthea Loucas Bosha with Chris Lucas, Con Christopoulos and Lyndon Kubis. It was an insightful day with frank and fearless conversation all helped along by the seamless hospitality and stunning grounds of Pt. Leo Estate. A very big thank you to the team at the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions for funding this activity.

In August, our annual Legends and Trailblazer Awards returned and were sponsored by Open Table. Chris Lucas generously hosted the Awards at Maison Batard and it was a night filled with celebration and pride for the award winners. The Legends awards winners were Chris Young of Trader House, Michael Dhillon of Bindi, Allen and Lizette Snaith of Warialda Belted Galloway Beef, Tim White and Amanda Schulze of Books for Cooks, Gabrielle and Chris Moore of Sailors Grave and Tammi and Stuart Jonas of Jonai Farms & Meatsmiths. The Trailblazers award winners were Nagesh Seethiah of Manze, Aaron Trotman of NON, Sava Gato of Tofu Shoten, Alice Zaslavsky, Hamed Allahyari of Salama Tea and Kababi and Gabriel Tucker, Max Moolman, Bridget Lansell of Wonki.

Other work delivered by the team this year included the Greatest of the Mall project with Vicinity Centres – a celebration of Melbourne mall culture and food-court favourites. Over three weeks in July, food truck legend Raph Rashid and a team of food-loving friends offered free snacks at five Vicinity Centres properties.

The team also ran a progressive laneway dinner for Global Victoria with a trade delegation from Michigan including the Governor Gretchen Whitmer and completed the Vic Grown program, a content program highlighting Victoria’s best food and drink products and producers, which was sponsored by Agriculture Victoria.

Congratulations to the team on another incredible year which has seen the organisation expand its scope and continue to deliver exciting events and content which tell the Melbourne and Victorian food and drink story as well as industry activity which creates economic impact for the state’s hospitality and food and drink professionals. The team continues to deliver on Food + Drink Victoria’s mission to champion the food and drink of Victoria.

Tina Savona,
Chair, Food + Drink Victoria