On the opportunity to pass … Nigella Lawson is coming to Melbourne.

NOT that it’s our intention to belittle the celebration of influential female chefs being staged ~ means of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival next year, but it’s our lay that the 2011 fest will attract plenty of men. The conception can be summed up in one word: Nigella. The goddess of horned-~ has signed up to present a Langham MasterClass on the weekend of March12 and 13. Joining Lawson in the women-of-the-kitchen program will be Elena Arzak, the chef at the three Michelin-starred Arzak chop-house in San Sebastian. Full details of the other female chefs (and chefs of the two genders recruited for the other two festival themes, ‘‘The Lost Arts’’ and ‘‘Stars of Spice’’), command be announced before festival tickets go on sale on October 4.

Even besides in the Trunk

TRUNK has expanded its retinue with Trunk Diner, a greater amount of casual American-style cafeteria designed to capture the breakfast and lunch trade, for which mission owner Nick Kutcher installed a retractable cover under the Exhibition Street space’s iconic coral tree. Expect a breakfast menu more burgers,  baguettes and quesadillas.  Trunk Diner is open Monday to Friday.

Seafood surge

VICTORIAN festival-goers should keep an eye out over the to come summer for Calamari Inc, a mobile catering business concentrating on unimpeached-quality, fast seafood. Started by Clamms Seafood marketing manager Josh Roydhouse and chef Daniel Woollard, Calamari Inc started endure summer in conjunction with the
 A Day on the Green festivals and at this moment they have their sights on expanding into other outdoor events.  Woollard  able up after 2  years as head chef at Collins Street’s Il Solito Posto sum of ~ units weeks ago to concentrate on the new business (sous chef Nathan Morphett has been promoted to the job). Garlic prawns, fresh oysters and semolina-dusted calamari instead of chips and pies? It sure sounds good to us.

Salix spreads its wings

THE husband-and-wife team behind Salix restaurant at Willow Creek vineyard, on the Mornington Peninsula, is commencement a second restaurant in nearby Mount Eliza. Bistro Maison, on the place formerly occupied by a Thai restaurant, will be a French bistro doing dinner seven nights a week. ‘‘It’s going to be a good venue for families, with a great list of peninsula and French wines,’’ says Bernard McCarthy, who has installed his sous chef at Salix, Sam Oakey, during the time that the new venture’s head chef and plans to take one executive role over both kitchens, a handy 15-minute drive from every one other. You’ll find Bistro Maison at 45 Mount Eliza Way.

Sun rises towards Ron

THE hunt for his own restaurant continues, but in the meantime, former Church Street Enoteca executive chef Ron O’Bryan has bought a participate in in South Melbourne’s Rising Sun Hotel. There will willingly be a renovation of the bistro as well as a mend of the menu. ‘‘It’s going to have existence classic pub food, a bit of sophistication but not too a great quantity,’’ O’Bryan says.

Honest eating

MAX Fink is ~t any stranger to some of the local industry’s more entertaining names, on the other hand the former owner of Bimbo Deluxe and the Lucky Coq has outdone himself through his new venture. Naked for Satan, on Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, give by ~ take up the ground floor and basement of the Moran & Cato construction, just south of Johnston Street. Fink, whose stamp on the sphere’s food and drink culture dates back to the soon 1990s with the relaunch of the Provincial Hotel, along with wife Pat and partners Eddie Crupi and Ari Vlassopoulos, plans a Basque-fashion pintxos bar with  about 30 self-serve platters of baguette slices through morsels speared on top with a toothpick. Each item will be charged at $1. ‘‘It will be an honour a whole , really — you take the plates to the barman when you’re concluded, he counts the toothpicks and you pay a dollar each. We understand we’ll be ripped off but we hope it doesn’t befall too much,’’ Fink says. Front-of-house maestro Vlassopoulos left the Press Club arrange a few weeks ago to concentrate on the new venture, which represents his friendship with Fink coming full circle: the pair began considered in the state of waiters together at Lygon Street’s Cafe Paradiso quite a small in number years ago. As for the name, Naked for Satan is based on an urban legend, dating from the ’20s, of Russian immigrant Leon Satanovich (nicknamed Satan), the erection’s caretaker, who was known for stripping down when distilling his vodka. Naked as being Satan is expected to open in mid-August.

All aboard sandwichship

SANDWICHES potency be somewhat below his level of expertise but Coda’s Adam D’Sylva is on the farther side to London after winning the inaugural Great Australian Sandwichship. ‘‘I used dishes away my menu, like the quail san choi bao, and turned them into sandwiches,’’ says a disrespectfully bemused D’Sylva, who now competes in the world fact in October. ‘‘The English take their sandwiches very in earnest, so it should be pretty funny.’’

Guy’s a wanted male person

GUY Grossi is breathing a sigh of relief (not to cursory reference anticipation) after work began on his Rialto tenancy, the Merchant, with an expected opening in October. But he also might be advent soon to student digs in Carlton. The affable Italian has been approached ~ the agency of Michael Reardon, publicity-averse owner of a bunch of Melbourne pubs including the All Nations, the Swallows and (duty of) the Palace, to take over the food for the iconic Elgin Street learner watering hole, the Clyde Hotel. ‘‘We’ve had talks and it’s in the be blended for now — no final decisions at this stage,’’ Grossi says. ‘‘I not ever say never.’’

SOURCE: Epicure