If you think Australian food is all about kangaroo, emu and crocodile, think again. Those clichés are a thing of the past as I experienced at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival held annually in March. I have often been to Pete Knipp’s World Gourmet Summit in Singapore and presumed that the taste fest was the first and last of these gourmet extravaganzas. Little did I realise then that the one organised in Melbourne is actually older than its Singaporean cousin and has been running since the early ’90s.

What exactly is a food and wine festival? In Melbourne, it is a month-long series of events every March, some open to the public, some very private for which you have to book ahead and pay handsomely. The public ones include Wicked Sunday, where a variety of boutique chocolate makers get together and let you sample their wares. On my visit there, I came across a little shop from the Mornington Peninsula, which I firmly believe make the best chocolate lime ganache I have ever tasted. More than just the quality of ‘couverture’ (base chocolate) they use, it’s the fine ingredients for the filling and the care they lavish on their products that makes for perfect fare. Wicked Sunday is a good place for the would-be dessert chef to watch the professionals in action as they demonstrate one preparation after the other in a public kitchen arena. The Connex Sizzle took place on the day before – this is a quintessential Australian barbecue right in the middle of Melbourne in the Guernica-like architecture of Federation Square. It’s a bit ’50s ‘kitsch Australiana’ but it works. And if you want to experience a well-oiled food cliché and can’t get out of the city, this is perfect.

Another wonderful and slightly less expensive way to enjoy this really restaurant-driven city is to go out to lunch. During this month of the food and wine festival, The Age (the newspaper that also publishes an excellent restaurant guide to the city and a new ‘foodie’ guide to Melbourne), ties up with several of the city’s top establishments to create a special two or three course lunch with a glass of wine from the region, for 35 Australian dollars (about Rs 1000). This is quite a steal and allows you to experience lovely restaurants and the work of some of the country’s great chefs for a fraction of what it would cost you at dinner. There are over 100 restaurants to choose from – my pick of these would be The Deck on Southbank overlooking the river; Fifteen, Jamie Oliver’s fabulous subterranean ode to fine-dining with a noble cause (giving disadvantaged youth a leg up). It is also a really fine restaurant with great food, solid service and a fab wine list; Grossi Florentino, which is one of the city’s oldest Italian restaurants. I love it. It looks straight out of a ’50s movie with its dark wood panelling and mirrors and distracted, busy waiters. The Cellar Bar next door and outside is also charming; Longrain on the very fashionable Little Bourke Street is modern Thai with seriously strong flavours. Everyone is talking about Maha, a newly-opened Middle Eastern basement restaurant located very centrally off Flinders Street. The chef Shane Delia is well known in the city and the restaurant is named after his Lebanese-Australian wife.

Some of the more glamorous events to attend include the World’s Longest Lunch, where 1200 people sit down together and are served a perfect four-course meal with unlimited wines and much entertainment. Last year, the very swish Crown complex which houses a 24-hour casino, an exceptional five-star hotel and some of the best restaurants in the city (Koko, JJ’s, Number 8, GAS, Neil Perry’s Rockpool, Guillaume), organised the lunch alongside their hotel on Southbank. It was a perfect setting overlooking the river on a warm, sunny afternoon which allowed everyone to show off their summer designer outfits – and why not, it was so much more refreshing than seeing ‘grunge’-dressed adults or the famous Melbourne ‘black’. T’Gallant, a winery from the Mornington peninsula, showcased their wine label ‘Juliet’, with a show-stopper sparkling called Ophelia.

If you want to get out of the city, the region of Victoria hosts 23 World’s Longest Lunches in other towns. Serious foodies would also be interested in the MasterClass cookery classes and dinners. Apart from Melbourne’s own wealth of talent, you can experience the food of international celebrity chefs like Heston Blumenthal (of the Fat Duck in the UK), Antonio Carluccio (the last word in Italian cooking, based in the UK), Thierry Marx (who has two Michelin stars from Bordeaux and an award-winning Japanese restaurant in Paris). I attended a dinner at the Eureka Skydeck, the highest public vantage point in Melbourne and actually in the southern hemisphere. The dinner was a rather long, languid affair by chef Raymond Capaldi but the evening, orchestrated by a charming and very funny sommelier, was a riot. You can count on the Aussies to come out of any tight situation with a laugh.

This is the bottom line really. There are so many food festivals the world over today. But apart from the serious food and wine stuff and the amazing setting of Melbourne which as a city, has grown on me like an expensive habit, it has to be the ‘off-the-wall, out-of-the-box’ thinking that makes me choose this one. Where in the world would you find an Aphrodisiac Orgy? Here, at the very funky rooftop bar called Madame Brussels. This is a simple setting on the roof of a building in the Central Business District filled with an eclectic mix from bankers to rockers! And where can you go on a ‘duck crawl’ or experience pork dishes on a ‘pig passport’? It’s only the Australians who make a serious subject like food, enjoyable and open for everyone.

If you are thinking of a holiday Down Under, then it may be wise to start thinking about Melbourne this March. Weather wise, you can’t get much better. And you are guaranteed a sense of humour, not to mention some outstanding food.

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