Melbourne Jewish Food Festival

Jewish cooking maven, Joan Nathan will headline the inaugural Melbourne Jewish Food Festival to be held in Elsternwick on Sunday 11 December 2022.
USA based, Joan Nathan is to Jewish food what Julia Child is to French cuisine. A bestselling cookbook author, TV cooking show host and regular contributor to media such as The New York Times, the Today show, Good Morning America and The Martha Stewart Show, she has received the highest industry honours and is renowned for bringing Jewish food from across centuries and continents to delicious life.

At the Festival, Nathan will take her audience beyond the Jewish cuisines that have become so well known to Australians into new and delectable regions. We’re familiar with Polish-Jewish staples such as kreplekh and babka, and Israeli foods such as falafel and humus, but we are less likely to have experienced Jewish foods of India, Iran, Cuba and Ukraine, or regional dishes from Greece and Italy with Jewish influences.

The Festival program also features much-loved Melbourne foodies, Alice Zaslavsky and Rita Erlich and internet sensations, the Monday Morning Cooking Club. There will be cooking demonstrations, tastings, in-depth conversations, lively banter, live music, storytelling, a Jewish home bakers’ competition, children’s cooking activities, a pop-up bookshop and more.