Returning to Australia “was such a dream of mine throughout all the lockdowns,” says Nigella Lawson, who is in that small band of personalities, unmistakable with just one name. Being a headline talent at Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in late March is something she feels deeply grateful for, as at times it did feel, she says, as if travel for such things would never be possible.

“I feel gorgeously at home wherever I am in Oz,” she says, sharing that travelling more widely is very much something that she wants to do. “Australia is, if you come from the smaller confines of Europe, so unfathomably large and there’s so much I haven’t seen,” she says. “It’s often so tempting to return again and again to places I know well, but I’m aware of how much more there is to discover.” 

So, could Australia ever poach one of Britain’s culinary treasures on a permanent basis? “I’d love to spend more time in Australia,” she says. “I couldn’t imagine ever giving up London, but the dream would be to spend, say, three months a year in Australia.”

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She’s certainly not short of friends in the southern hemisphere. Senior delicious. editor, and of course former MasterChef judge, Matt Preston will be hosting Nigella for a sold-out Sunday lunch during the festival. “What’s so lovely is that I know that the minute Matt and I start talking – and there’s so much to talk about – it will feel as if we’ve never been apart,” she says. Drinks with Nigella on Saturday, March 26 has also been added by popular demand. Nigella will be in conversation with another old friend, Alice Zaslavsky at The Edge in Federation Square.

While the coveted tickets for Nigella’s lunch are long gone, she does give an insight into her own love of a traditional Sunday lunch. “If I have all the family over, or a tableful of friends, it can be lovely to go old school and do a big roast, with a huge amount of crisp roast potatoes, piles of vegetables, gravy, and a cosy pudding, but it’s also a great opportunity to try out new recipes and, for me, pottering about peacefully in the kitchen on a Sunday morning is an essential part of the pleasure.” 

Lockdown gave ample time for pottering, albeit for Nigella it was constructive. “I wrote Cook, Eat, Repeat in lockdown, so I was busy and had a focus that kept me going, which I was very grateful for,” she says. “I’d started working on the book long before. Despite the title, this was actually a pre-pandemic project, but in the light of what was going on, there were inevitable changes to the book as planned, and I ditched some recipes and added others and, indeed, changed a whole chapter.” 

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The book existed only as jotted down recipes and notes pre-pandemic, says Nigella, so there was a lot to do. “And because I was alone, I somehow felt I could write more expansively and freely,” she says. “It allowed me to take solace from so many beautiful memories, and also hope for a future to make more of them. But most of all, I felt the book was truly a companion. I feel very intensely and emotionally connected to it still.”

Lasagne, banana bread, meatloaf and home-baked sourdough are said to have defined lockdown for legions of home cooks but for Nigella it’s a very specific, and perhaps unexpected dish that comes to mind. “I did quite a bit of recipe testing during this period and there is one that somehow brings that time back for me like no other, and it’s the rhubarb and ginger flapjacks, which appeared in the Rhubarb chapter of Cook, Eat, Repeat.”

Nigella shares that her “poor neighbour had to try so many iterations of these, as I used to put half of every batch I made on her doorstep.” If only we all had Nigella as a neighbour. “I ate them throughout that first lockdown we had, and it’s a recipe that has a very special place in my heart,” she says.

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While Nigella confesses she’s “not very good at restaurant recommendations on home ground,” frequent visits to Australia have ensured that she has plenty of favourites. “I was looking forward to going back [to Jerry Mai’s, Annam], but sadly found it’s still closed, post-Covid,” she says. So where might Victorians spot Nigella, and where is she longing to eat? Ice cream at Pidapipo gelateria is on the list, as is Rare Hare on the Mornington Peninsula. And, well, Sydney. 

“I tell anyone going to Sydney they absolutely do have to have lunch at Iceberg’s. It is very much a special place for me: beautiful food; beautiful view.” Josh Niland’s Fish Butchery is also a firm favourite. “I am longing to try out his new venture, Charcoal Fish. And equally longing to go to Kylie Kwong’s new place, Lucky Kwong,” says Nigella. “But there’s always so much to discover.”

Turning to the future, Nigella has, she says, “a few ideas and projects on the back burner,” but in common with a lot of people she’s been running on empty for a while. She longs to refuel. Coming back to Australia is such an opportunity. “I long for those big skies: there’s just something about an Australian sky – the light, the expanse – that does my soul good,” she says. “And being able to take part in something as inspiring as Melbourne Food and Wine Festival feels such an important part of that.”