Five Food-Focused Design Week Events To Check Out in May

You eat with your eyes. And that’s never been more true than at this year’s Melbourne Design Week. The 11-day program, running from Thursdays May 14 to Sunday May 24, features more than 400 events across the city, and this year, a significant number of them explore the connection between design and what’s on the plate. Here are five food-meets-design events worth checking out.

Yiaga: A Design Dinner

When Vue de Monde executive chef Hugh Allen opened Yiaga last year, Broadsheet dubbed the restaurant “an heirloom for Melburnians”. A meal at the Fitzroy Gardens fine diner is as much about the world-class food as it is about taking in the John Wardle-designed restaurant. Design Week is bringing the two powerhouses together for dinner at Yiaga and a talk between Allen and Wardle about their collaboration.

Thursday, May 21. $320.

Sixteen Things To Do With A Lemon

Melbourne-based food stylist Chris Yuille and AKLR Studio are following up their 2025 art project Sixteen Things I Brought Home From New York, which featured photography of 16 salt shakers acquired in the Empire State, with this year’s Sixteen Things To Do With A Lemon at Collingwood Yard’s Dua Bakehouse. The bakery’s walls will display 16 different images of lemons and there’ll be a lemon dessert special available throughout the week to celebrate the exhibition.

Thursday May 14 to Sunday May 24. Free.

Root To Stem: A Zero-Waste Dining Experience With Chef Johnny Hasan

Johnny Hasan is the chef behind Patris, a homey Greek and Cypriot diner he opened with his partner Stella Michael earlier this year. For Design Week, the chef is hosting a three-course closed-loop dinner where nothing will be discarded. The event, taking place in an exhibition space at The Park House in Abbotsford, will include a conversation about food waste and circular cooking.

Friday, May 22 and Saturday, May 23. $120 plus booking fees.

Table Manners at Florian Home

There’s a quiet satisfaction in finding a good spoon – the right weight, texture and size. Hosted at Florian Home, this exhibition invites 11 local and international designers to reimagine a cutlery set. That includes jewellery designer Hamish Munro, third-generation glassblower Hamish Donaldson, artist Tai Snaith and New Zealand-based lighting studio Snelling. One-off commissions will be shown alongside pieces from The Kraftsman, which specialises in restored vintage homewares.

May 14 to 17. Free.

Cocktail Hour: Audrey Shaw, Carnation Canteen – Sold Out

Before Audrey Shaw opened her celebrated Fitzroy diner, Carnation Canteen, she was an architect at Kirstin Thompson’s eponymous acclaimed architecture firm. Shaw’s style and eye for detail have resulted in singular Melbourne venues, with interiors and plates of food unlike any other in the city. In this conversation with curator Timothy Moore, Shaw will talk about her rare career trajectory, and how architecture and design profoundly inform her work as a chef and restaurateur.

Monday, May 18. 

Additional reporting by Gitika Garg and Katya Watchel