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From community-led harvests, to cheese and bread workshops with Australia’s best, regional food festivals have a lot to offer – and they’re booming. Here’s our pick of five to visit this autumn.
Splendour in the Grass might be cancelled, but there’s always The Great Trentham Spudfest north-west of Melbourne. It’s one of a growing number of autumn food festivals held across regional Australia, where small-town charm, farm-gate trails and food workshops attract more visitors each year.
For the first time in its 16 years of operation, Spudfest has expanded. Demand for its kitschy potato-themed food stalls, peeling competitions and historic spud-hut tours exceeded pre-COVID levels last year, and led organisers to add a second day of festivities, with a new farm-gate trail across the Hepburn and Moorabool shires.
In Victoria, visitor numbers are also expected to increase at the Wandi Nut Festival in Wandiligong and the slick Grampians Grape Escape at Halls Gap, while in NSW, the Robertson Potato Festival is anticipating a record 15,000 visitors.
Such an influx can have a significant economic impact on regional towns. Grampians Grape Escape reported $3 million in economic outcomes for the Shire of the Northern Grampians last year, while the smaller Kalorama Chestnut Festival, on Melbourne’s eastern fringe, provides essential annual funding for the Kalorama kindergarten and primary schools.
The success of these regional food festivals has inspired several newcomers over the past two years, including Caper in Byron Bay, the Fungi Feastival on the NSW South Coast, and the Mount Alexander Tastes Showcase, which will kick off for the first time on April 25.
Ready for a road trip? Here are five regional food festivals to check out this autumn.
Mount Alexander Tastes Showcase, Castlemaine
April 25–29
The inaugural showcase of Castlemaine’s food culture scraps the traditional market stall model in favour of interactive tours, workshops and cooking classes.
“It’s a gorgeous gold rush town that’s become a foodie hub,” says Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns, event organiser and co-founder of Shedshaker Brewing. “It’s quite shocking there hasn’t yet been a food festival.”
As autumn leaves turn the streets gold, visitors are invited to attend ticketed day-long organic cheesemaking workshops with Long Paddock Cheese (suppliers of dairy products to three-hatted Sydney restaurant Oncore by Clare Smyth); free community apple juicing at The Hub Plot Garden; and sourdough baking classes with baker Ken Hercott of Sprout Sourdough.
But the Holy Goat Long Lunch is the highlight, celebrating local cheesemakers Ann-Marie Monda and Carla Meurs, who set the benchmark for chevre in Australia with La Luna, their prizewinning signature cheese. The pair announced their retirement in January, with their final batch set to hit the market in May.
The four-course lunch (from $190 per person), held over two services on Sunday and Monday, will be led by chef Alex Petter of the hatted Bar Midland.
The Great Trentham Spudfest, Trentham
May 4–5
The 16th annual Great Trentham Spudfest celebrates over 160 years and five generations of potato farming in the region, with over 100 themed food stalls, farm tours, sporting competitions, scavenger hunts and historical tours during the height of harvest season.
“You won’t get better tasting spuds than what we offer here,” says festival organiser Kye Theobald, who recommends visitors try ‘spudnuts’ (potato doughnuts) from Doughnutters and ‘pomme tots’ (loaded homemade potato gems) from Jinky’s.
“It’s the only time of the year they’re available.”
The steady supply of carbohydrates will prepare visitors for the Spud Olympics, which will include potato sack races; spud and spoon races; tough spudder (an obstacle course to undertake while carrying a sack of potatoes); and a competition for the longest potato peel.
The tours of historical spud huts, which offer a rare glimpse of life as an early potato digger, are likely to remain the most popular activity, with more than half of all tickets already sold.
This is the first year Spudfest has been held over an entire weekend, and on the second day farm gates – mapped onto a new farm-gate trail – will open across the region.
Wandi Nut Fest, Wandiligong
April 27–28
Harvest season celebrations can be a little odd in the historic gold mining village of Wandiligong, home to just over 450 residents.
During the inaugural Wandi Nut Fest in 2001, for example, villagers decorated their bras before flinging them into the trees and later held an op-shop fashion parade.
The festival has undergone several changes over the past 20 years, but the latest iteration returns to its roots: “The idea was to maintain focus on our nut growers, while also playing on the idea that the festival has always been a little quirky, or nutty,” says committee secretary Emily Rose.
“[We wanted] to go beyond being another bush market.”
That means there are roasted chestnuts, freshly cracked walnuts and cooking demonstrations soundtracked by The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra, as well as salami-making competitions, beatboxing workshops and the return of the op shop parade.
Entry is ticketed: $20 for adults, $10 for seniors, but children attend free. Visitors are advised to book ahead online, as day passes at the gate are subject to availability.
Grampians Grape Escape, Halls Gap
May 3–5
Part wine festival, part music festival, the Grampians Grape Escape is a slick, three-day regional production attracting crowds of up to 10,000 people to Halls Gap annually.
It began as a way to showcase the cool climate wines (most often, shiraz) produced in the mountainous Grampians region.
Now in its 32nd year, the festival has evolved from a collection of seven wineries and six local restaurants to a massive 100 exhibitors, 17 live bands and a dozen masterclasses, covering everything from wine tastings to DIY alcohol infusions using garden produce.
Grape stomping continues to be a highlight of the festival, and this year Karen Martini, Good Food contributor and culinary director at Saint George, will be partaking alongside former MasterChef contestant Tim Bone and Soil author Matthew Evans.
Tasting tour tickets (from $105) are available on Saturday and Sunday, for those keen to sample the hundreds of wines, beers and ciders on offer throughout the festival village (pro-tip: shuttle buses are available to the surrounding villages).
Kalorama Chestnut Festival, Kalorama
May 5
It began as a roadside chestnut stall in 1985, but the Kalorama Chestnut Festival has evolved into a community-led day-long celebration of autumn in the scenic Dandenong Ranges – with all proceeds going to the local preschool and primary school.
As the years passed, it became tradition for each new generation of school families to take the reins and organise the annual free event. It’s got all the charm of an old-school fair, with market stalls, live music, workshops and a kitschy chestnut mascot.
The entire school community gathers before the event to harvest 2 tonnes of chestnuts from local farms, snipping them in preparation. Many will go to the roasting stand, but some are used to make chestnut brownies for the cake stall.
Chestnuts also feature in a chestnut curry special at hatted restaurant Babaji’s Kerala Kitchen, in the nearby town of Belgrave (available from noon to 7pm on the day of the festival).
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