Newcastle Food Month returns bigger than ever

The very popular Newcastle Food Month returns in 2026 with over 70 feature events and a boast that it is now the largest and longest regional food festival in Australia.

Newcastle Food Month 2026 runs from March 28 with signature events and feature happenings across April.

SoundBites at Newcastle Racecourse

The opening weekend sees the debut of SoundBites on March 28 - Newcastle’s first large-scale, open-air celebration of food, wine and music of this size. This all-day festival brings together premium Hunter Valley wines, standout local chefs and producers, pop-up kitchens, live music and festival energy.

The Great Newcastle Waiters' Racer

The inaugural Waiters’ Race will be held on April 1 i partnership with First Creek Wines and the Hunter Culinary Association. This relay event will see teams of four navigate a purpose-built obstacle course while carrying trays laden with wine, beer and cocktails, aiming to transfer their precious cargo to teammates without a spill.

Customs House Autumnal Garden Party

On Saturdays 11 and 18 April, one of the city’s most iconic venues will be transformed for an elegant afternoon celebration. Expect seasonal produce, matched wines, roaming canapés and live 

entertainment in a lovely harbourside setting.

Throughout April, the Newy Tour co is hosting Walka & Talk and Eat & Art, a new walking tour which combines food, art and local stories. Guided by ewcastle’s most knowledgeable voices in the food and arts scene, the experience weaves through key precincts, stopping to taste along the way.

Newcastle’s newest wine bar, Cara, is bringing serious flavour to Food Month with an intimate Winemaker’s Table on April 9. Expect a curated multi-course menu paired with exceptional wines and the stories behind them. Seats are limited.

Food Month partner BMW, meanwhile, has paired the latest luxury models with a multi-course stand up EXP dining experience with head chef Josh Hannan at the wheel. Each course will be matched with First Creek wines.

 
Food Month Plate Dates return with a $30 meal-and-drink deal while for a festival that draws visitors from around the country.

Program and bookings at newcastlefoodmonth.com.au 

Images: Supplied, NFM

Melbourne welcomes a new international hotel

Melbourne has a new international hotel with the opening of Mercure Melbourne La Trobe Street on the edge of the CBD. 

Developed by Spacious Group with a $90 million investment, the 195-room property is being billed as the largest purpose-built hotel development to open in Melbourne CBD this year and the first new-build Mercure in the city centre in over a decade.

The 18-storey hotel features interiors designed by Sora Interiors and a hotel tower created by LiFE Architecture houses six suites, a restaurant and bar, and a gym. 

The lobby's aesthetic draws from the site's history as a tinsmith factory, most notably in an abstract artwork depicting tin offcuts that once would've littered the floors. 

The property' is a six-minute walk to Southern Cross Station, eight minutes to Marvel Stadium, and a 12-minute walk to Queen Victoria Market. 

“We're in a unique pocket of the city and are fortunate to have great separation between ourselves and other tall buildings on all sides,” said hotel GM Justin Phillips. “So no matter where you stay in the hotel, you've got great views, whether it's towards Docklands, back towards Flagstaff Gardens or views of the CBD and out towards North Melbourne.”

Guest rooms feature floor-to-ceiling windows while select suites open onto private outdoor terraces. The décor in the rooms was inspired by the nearby gardens "with spring-inspired tones and nature-led hues layered through greens, blush pinks and soft neutrals".

The hotel teams share curated neighbourhood recommendations, from a gin masterclass at Little Lon Distilling Co, rooftop movie night at Brewmanity Beer Co or dinner on The Q Train. 

On level six, the lift doors open to reveal the hotel's restaurant and bar, Foundry, which is open to guests and the public. 

The bar spills onto an outdoor terrace that is likely to be a popular spot for after-work drinks. 

“The sun sets behind Docklands, and during golden hour, the buildings are illuminated and the water sparkles,” said Phillips. “It's just a very nice place to be at that time of day.”

The hotel is an Accor property. 

“The opening of Mercure Melbourne La Trobe Street is a hugely exciting moment for Accor and for Melbourne's tourism offering,” said Adrian Williams, Chief Operating Officer of Accor in the Pacific region. 

“The hotel brings a bold new expression of our Mercure brand to the heart of the city, thoughtfully designed for how today's travellers live, work and explore.”

With over 1,000 hotels in more than 70 countries, Mercure is the largest midscale hotel network outside the United States. 

A one-day taste of the best of the Eden Valley

Looking for a special wine and food occasion? 

How about the Vino Camino 2026 - a collaboration between between two high-profile families in the Eden Valley on Sunday, May 17. 

Part of Tasting Australia, and billed as "a journey through the Barossa", the one-day gourmet experience offers the chance to spend time in the company of two of the Barossa’s founding families, Henschke and Angas, while exploring the picturesque Eden Valley.

Covering 5 kilometres, guests will be guided past historic vineyards and across ancient soils that produce some of Australia’s most renowned wines, including Hill of Grace and Mount Edelstone.



Acclaimed local chefs Sam Smith and Sandor Palmai of Barossa standout Otherness will prepare seasonal dishes along the way, paired with Henschke and Hutton Vale Farm wines. 

The journey culminates in a generous Barossa-style lunch at the Angas family's historic Hutton Vale Farm.

Wine tastings and wine stories will be the order of the day as you visit landmarks including the  

Henschke cellar door in Keyneton and the Gnadenberg Church alongside the Hill of Grace vineyard.

The star tasting awaits at the peak of Mt Edelstone with a shiraz trio of Hill of Grace, Hutton Vale Farm and Mount Edelstone - along with 360-degree views of northern Eden Valley.

Lunch will be held in Hutton Vale Farm’s courtyard - with the family's famous lamb likely to feature. 

The event is for 18+ only and vegetarian, Vegan, coeliac and other dietary requirements can be catered for on request. The cost is $475 per person. 

See https://tastingaustralia.com.au/products/events/2026/vino-camino-2026

Hard Core: Mona unveils a new headliner

French-Swiss artist Julian Charrière has been chosen as the next headliner at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart. 

Charrière will present his first solo exhibition in Australia in Tasmania from June 6, 2026, to March 29, 2027.

Opening in time for mid-winter festival Dark Mofo (June 11-22), his Hard Core will feature an assemblage of artworks from sculpture and installation to film and photography that bridge nature, science, history, industry and myth.

‘Ideas burst from Julian Charrière (below) like licks from an over-friendly dog," says Mona’s founder, David Walsh. 

"Sometimes it’s a lot - attending one of Julian’s exhibitions can be overwhelming. But Julian isn’t a meddler. His ideas are deep and incisive, the sort of ideas that expose the soft white underbelly of reality." 

Hard Core will transform Mona’s touring galleries and spill out into the Void and newly excavated additions to the museum. 

It will feature sculptures made of coal, lava, molten computers, onyx and obsidian.

Cored samples taken from glacial erratic boulders are repaired with steel, aluminium, brass and silver. A lump of stromatolite rock, hundreds of millions of years old, is slowly polished to a perfect sphere between lapidary rock grinders. 

There are plants preserved cryogenically, snails slurping the calcium carbonate from marble statues, and a vending machine full of fossilised ammonites.

So, all very Mona. 

In photographs and video installations, Charrière pits human action against ideas of nature’s grandeur and vulnerability. 

With Breathe, a permanent installation commissioned especially for Mona and built into the museum’s foundations, Charrière releases oxygen molecules that have been trapped inside banded iron ore formations since the Great Oxidation Event some 2.4 billion years ago. 

Visitors are invited to inhale this ancient air, which has been lodged in rock over the years, 

Mona’s director for curatorial affairs, Jarrod Rawlins, said: ‘We like beautiful adventures, physically, emotionally and philosophically, and Breathe delivers that from every angle.’

Berlin-based Charrière has exhibited widely, but this is his first solo exhibition in Oceania.

‘What’s special about this show is how it coalesces distinct works into a single geological body, compressing planetary timescales into a shared, stratigraphic architecture and encounter," the artist says. 

" Here, Mona acts as both figurative and literal bedrock - a boundary-pushing museum which, carved from sandstone, situates human civilization within a far older story; a story of stone and bone.

‘Tasmania, too, is integral to the temporal dissonance of Hard Core: a primeval, almost Gondwanan place, where exhibiting feels less like placing works in a museum and more like returning them to the planetary condition to which they already belong.’ 

A full-colour exhibition catalogue including installation photography will be published later this year.

* Charrière has exhibited at many of the world’s major art institutions, including solo shows at Museum Tinguely in Switzerland, Palais de Tokyo in France, and SFMoMA in the US. 

AirAsia boosts Australian flight frequency

 

AirAsia is boosting its presence across major Australian gateways with a series of new flights. 

The moves reflect sustained demand and growing consumer confidence in AirAsia as the airline of choice for Australians travelling to Bali, Kuala Lumpur and destinations across the broader AirAsia network, AirAsia says in a statement. 

Adelaide-Bali frequency will increase from 4x to 7x weekly from March 21, rising to 10x weekly during peak periods, creating more than 56,000 seats per year through Adelaide Airport

Melbourne-Bali is a new route launching on March 21, adding 130,000 seats and expanding choice for Victorian travellers

Flights to Kuala Lumpur from both Sydney and Melbourne are now operating daily, with premium cabins and flatbed seating options

Perth-Bali is operating four times daily (28x weekly) operating year round, while Perth-Kuala Lumpur will have double daily departures increasing to three daily during peak periods. 

The bad news is for Northern Territory flyers with Darwin-Kuala Lumpur and Darwin-Bali flights suspended for 12 months from April 28 due to low demand. 

Carrying close to 1 million guests between Australia and Asia annually, AirAsia operated 69x total weekly frequencies across the major Australian hubs of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth in 2025. 

Through its Fly-Thru product, the airline offers travellers access to its extensive onward network of more than 150 destinations. 

Amanda Woo, Chief Commercial Officer of AirAsia X, said the network enhancements reflect the airline's long-term commitment to Australia and its travellers. 

"Australia is an incredibly important market for AirAsia, and we are continuing to strengthen our network in a disciplined way, utilising our aircraft for popular and high-capacity routes where there is increasing demand,” she said. 

"The scale of what we are building in Australia is significant. We are not just adding seats, we are giving Australians genuinely affordable access to Asia and the world, from four major cities, with more to come. 

"We understand that the suspension of our Darwin routes impacts travel plans and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. The capacity will be redeployed to other Australian destinations, further strengthening AirAsia's commitment to the market." 

New Zealand wine industry optimistic for 2026 vintage

There is optimism across the New Zealand wine industry with the 2026 harvest is underway or about to begin, New Zealand Winegrowers reports.

"As always, this is an exciting and highly anticipated time of year, with indicators pointing to grapes that offer regional diversity, distinctive flavours and ripeness" the industry's umbrella organisation reported.

"Ongoing changes in weather patterns have seen harvest dates move forward by several weeks in recent years, and 2026 is shaping up to be the earliest yet.

"Northland kicked off on January 23, followed by Hawke’s Bay, and in more recent weeks, Marlborough and North Canterbury. Central Otago is looking slightly later this year."

Philip Gregan, CEO New Zealand Winegrowers, reported: “January to March are critical months for growing and ripening grapes.

"We are looking forward to a nice, warm March, with cooler autumn nights that are important for flavour development.

"Winemakers are feeling optimistic as they look forward to crafting wines for both domestic and international consumers, continuing New Zealand’s reputation for wines that are distinctive, refreshing, sustainable and premium.”

Image: Sauvignon blanc grapes, NZ Winegrowers