To satisfy the cravings of festival-goers that are a little bit fancier than the average joe, Melbourne Food & Wine Festival has announced The Convenient Store presented by 7-Eleven, stocking your favourite go-to snacks, bespoke products and fresh and packaged food produced in collaboration with leading Melbourne chefs and restaurants. The Convenient Store is cashless and will be open from 8am till 6pm, Friday 20 to Sunday 29 March at Queen Victoria Market.

Luke Mangan’s Waterloo café, Luke’s Kitchen, has launched a five-course brunch menu with bottomless Mimosas to ensure you get the best possible start to your day. Settle in for a multi-course feast of crumpets with poached peaches and labneh, zucchini fritters with smoked salmon and a prosciutto and egg benny. Make sure you’ve got the afternoon free so you can rest and digest. Bottomless Brunch at Luke’s Kitchen includes five courses plus two hours of free-flowing Madame Coco sparkling wine, mimosas and bellinis for $75pp or unlimited Bertaine Rosé for $80pp. For details, head to lukemangan.com.

To celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day, the women of Young Henrys give you “Free the Neipa”, a New England IPA, mixed with a motley crew of tropical, fruit-forward hops for a juicy, sessionable beer . The limited-edition brew is available nationwide from Friday, 6th March, with 10% of beer profits donated to Newtown-based women’s charity, Two Good Co.

Celebrate Mardi Gras with rainbow Pride Noods at Din Tai Fung Emporium Melbourne. For an extra $1 have them in some of the wonton and soup dishes, such as chicken mushroom dumplings. Available until 12 March.

Sydney dining institution, Aria, has expanded its offering beyond the dining room, introducing a casual menu of seasonal snacks, available exclusively from Aria’s bar area. Highlights from the bar menu include a crisp wagyu toastie with dill pickles and house mustard as well as crab sandwiches with tarragon and lettuce heart that see away with the need for cutlery. Aria’s bar menu is available every day from 5.30pm to 11:00pm on a walk-in basis only.

Mussel Mondays at Lamaro’s Hotel in South Melbourne lets fans eat their fill for $30, from 12pm till late. The likes of moules marinière, Singapore chilli and Thai curry come with a pot of beer or glass of wine as part of the deal.

Firedoor will be hosting their second Fireside of 2020 on Sunday March 15th. Firedoor has partnered with restaurant reservation platform Quandoo to bring internationally renowned chef Margarita Forés from Manila to Sydney to unite with Lennox Hastie for a one off, fire-powered Filipino-style lunch. The $150 per person six-course menu will be served at two sittings, 12:00pm and 2:30pm, and you can book here.

Support Victoria’s bushfire-affected north-east by heading to the Tastes of Rutherglen from the 7th and 8th of March. The region’s 18 wineries will open their cellar doors for tastings, classes and more. Tickets $20; free entry for designated drivers.

EXP. restaurant is on the move, and their last service at Oakvale Winery, NSW, will be Sunday lunch on the 22nd of March. They will be reopening on April 3rd, for dinner, next door to Fawk Foods Kitchen & Bakery, in the Hunter Valley.

Bali’s Tropicola welcomes star chefs Jimmy Garside and Joel Wooten, both Mary’s Underground alumni. The duo boasts a passion for sustainable, local produce, the menu will be seafood-heavy featuring a variety of dishes such as, coral trout and aioli, crabs with sambal, octopus with herbs and pickled potatoes. We might book a trip to Bali, just for this!