Book Now: First 22 Events Unveiled for Broadsheet’s Dine Out Festival 2026

You know that sense of anticipation that starts building before every summer? We’re feeling it right now, in the dead of winter, as we count down the return of Dine Out.

We introduced the annual food festival last year to celebrate the Melbourne’s incredible culinary talents and give them a chance to go off-piste. In 2026, in partnership with Mastercard and Doordash, we’re staging 50 new events across the city over the course of a week, from July 20–26.

Your favourite restaurants are joining forces for single-night collaborative menus. Queue-worthy bakeries are putting on exclusive items all week. And once again, some of Sydney’s best chefs are flying down. The full program will be revealed on Friday June 19. For now, we have the first 22 events to share with you – a mix of ticketed and drop-in affairs.

The festival will open on a high, with a one-off French dinner, Hautest With the Mostest, at Clover. The Richmond wine bar has invited in pals from CBD restaurant Harriot. Together, they’ll prepare a seven-course set menu dinner that showcases nostalgic French dishes through a modern lens, exploring the ways Gallic food culture has evolved in the last century.

The next evening, another hot collaboration goes down in Brunswick East, as wine bar Etta hosts beloved regional diner Chauncy. In the kitchen, Chauncy’s Louis Naepels and Etta’s own Lorcán Kan will collaborate on a four-course set menu including dishes like chou farci (cabbage rolls) with Chinese sausage and chestnut, exploring their respective French and Malaysian backgrounds. (Update: this event has now sold out.)

On Wednesday night, Melbourne gets its first introduction to chef Sid Ahuja, who spent a decade at two-Michelin-star restaurant Gymkhana, one of the best Indian restaurants in London, if not the world. For Dine Out, he’s teaming up with Mischa Tropp at Kolkata Cricket Club. Book a table and you can order from a Ahuja’s a la carte menu, including tandoor chicken tikka and Hyderabadi gosht biryani with pomegranate raita. Plus, Kolkata Cricket Club’s classic menu.

Other collabs of note are Geralds x Naga Dining, which will see the Carlton North institution go Thai for one night only; Pebble x Doju’s hyper-seasonal dinner; Circl x Warabi’s Scandi-Japanese menu; a Saturday of Thai-accented bagels courtesy of Masses x Yang Thai; Mr West x Satu Jiwa’s lively Indonesian street party spilling onto Footscray’s Nicholson Mall; Omnia x G McBean’s meat-driven butcher’s cuts dinner, Stokehouse x Enoteca Boccaccio’s pasta festa and Dua x Nimbo’s two-night (yes, night) bakery pop-up. Then there’s the competition at Collingwood brewery Molly Rose, where four pizzerias with ply the masses with their best slices, hoping to be voted the champion.

But while these collaborations have an inherent element of surprise, some operators are making surprises happen all on their own. Audrey Shaw’s Bar Carnation is using Dine Out to launch its new late-night menu – in the form of a stand-up Martini and burger party. Butter Days is baking a different limited-edition cookie each day. Monforte is spiking hot chocolates with croissants. Carlton Wine Room is putting on nothing but wild game for just 20 lucky diners. Poodle and sister venue Rocco’s Bologna Discoteca are putting on parties you just know are going to be complete vibes. Figlia and attached deli Grana are turning Roman and alpine, respectively. Suze is bring back its beloved glazed duck. And Frankie’s Tortas and Tacos is ditching tortas for a one-off menu exploring Jalisco – lesser-known agave spirits included.

That’s it for now. We’ll reveal the remaining events this time next week. To ensure you get the tickets you want, sign up to Broadsheet Today, our flagship daily newsletter. It’s free and brings you the best of your city, from the hottest restaurant openings to new art exhibitions.

Dine Out 2026 first program reveal
Bar Carnation
Butter Days Bakery
Carlton Wine Room
Circl x Warabi
Clover x Harriot
Dua x Nimbo
Etta x Chauncy (sold out)
Figlia
Frankie’s Tortas and Tacos
Geralds x Naga Dining
Grana
Masses Bagels x Yang Thai
Molly Rose
Monforte Viennoiserie
Mr West x Satu Jiwa
Omnia x G McBean
Pebble x Doju
Poodle
Rocco’s Bologna Discoteca
Sid Ahuja x Mischa Tropp
Stokehouse x Enoteca Boccaccio
Suze

Broadsheet’s Dine Out festival returns from July 20–26, 2026 in Melbourne and July 27–August 2, 2026 in Sydney, with 80 events across the two cities.