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The Curated Plate: The Sunshine Coast Food Festival Worth Building a Winter Escape Around
The Curated Plate is not just another food festival. It is a 10-day Sunshine Coast winter itinerary told through chefs, producers, fire, seafood, farms, rivers, orchards and hinterland tables.
This article was created in partnership with The Curated Plate, the Sunshine Coast’s annual food and drink festival that turns “where are we eating?” into a full winter itinerary.
The Sunshine Coast does winter with a full glass, a salt-bright horizon and smoke rising from the hills. From 24th July to 2nd August, The Curated Plate returns for ten days of food and drink worth travelling for, with 50+ curated experiences from the coast to the hinterland. Leading chefs, growers, fishers, makers and local producers gather for fire-led feasts, seafood by the water, orchard picnics, long lunches and dining events that turn a winter escape into something far more delicious.
Tickets are limited, and the program is generous, so the best weekends will be planned early. Consider this your cue to book the table, pack the overnight bag and let the Sunshine Coast set the pace.
At a Glance: The Curated Plate 2026
When: 24th July to 2nd August 2026
Where: Across the Sunshine Coast, from coast to hinterland
What: 10 days of food and drink, with 50+ curated experiences
Best for: Food lovers, winter weekenders, seafood devotees, long-lunch people and experience-led travellers
Book for: Fire-led feasts, orchard picnics, river lunches, seafood events, farm tours, chef dinners and producer showcases
Need to know: Many events have limited capacity, so headline lunches, river experiences and farm events are worth booking early.
What is The Curated Plate?
The Curated Plate is the Sunshine Coast’s annual food and drink festival, returning with 10 days of coast-to-hinterland feasting and 50+ curated experiences. Rather than gather in one place, the festival moves with the landscape, tracing the region through its growers, fishers, chefs, farms, dining rooms, riverbanks and hinterland tables.
That is what makes it worth travelling for. For southern travellers, it is winter sun with substance. For locals, it is the Coast seen through sharper, more delicious eyes. And for anyone who has ever booked a weekend around a table, it is a reminder that the best way to understand a region is often through what it grows, catches, pours and plates.
The Experiences to Book Around
This is where The Curated Plate moves from an event program to a travel plan, built for people who map out a weekend around where they are eating next.
Fire, Feast & Full-Bodied Flavour
Start with Island Fire, the festival’s opening event at Alsahwa Estate, where Culinary Director Peter Kuruvita joins head chef Mal Meiers for a Sri Lankan-inspired garden feast shaped by Gini and Gewa, meaning fire and rhythm. With a Sunshine & Sons cocktail on arrival, traditional dancers and drummers, a live kottu roti demonstration and a four-course shared feast moving through spice, smoke, curry, sambal and salted honey caramel, it sets the festival alight from the first night.
Kenilworth carries the fire inland. Across three days of smoke, country music, wine, art and local produce, Kenilworth Ember & Harvest Weekend makes a strong case for the hinterland feast. Its food magnet is Wildfire & Wine, an open-air dinner hosted by MasterChef’s Jamie Fleming, with a Kenilworth Dairies milk-washed cocktail, Spill Wine and Sara of Tuck Shop Catering Company’s flame-cooked menu of sourdough pizzas, smoked brisket, fire-roasted vegetables and chocolate-laced pears.
Seafood, River Days & Knife Work
Mooloolaba Seafood Market Day brings the working harbour into the festival, with Mooloolaba Fisheries and Rockliff Seafoods hosting a free wharf-side celebration of 100% Australian wild-caught seafood. Local fisheries will be cooking $5 bite plates, trawlers will be moored on the river, live music will carry across the wharf, and yes, there is the oddly irresistible chance to hold a 40kg tuna.
Pier 33’s Five-Course Long Lunch takes a more composed route through the coast, with Rockliff oysters, line-caught crudo, Mooloolaba king prawns and Coral Coast barramundi on the table. Drift & Dine slips onto the Mooloolah River aboard a 118-year-old vessel, pairing local seafood with native bush tucker, foraged ingredients and botanical cocktails across four courses. Walker’s Seafood & SOKA’s Tuna Cutting Show adds the knife work, with a whole yellowfin tuna from Mooloolaba-based Walker Seafoods broken down live.
Between the wharf, the river and the blade, this is the Sunshine Coast’s seafood culture at its most immediate.
Orchards, Farms & Long Lunches
The long lunches are where the festival finds its sweep. Glasshouse Country Long Lunch at Yanalla Farms seats diners among a lychee orchard beneath the Glass House Mountains, with chef Dan Penfold and local producers shaping the menu. Guests arrive to a Yanalla Farms and Sunshine & Sons lychee cocktail before seasonal Sunshine Coast dishes, live music and a guided farm tour. The orchard is the dining room, the mountain is the backdrop, and the lychees are the reason everyone is there.
Twilight Soirée at Green Valley Fingerlimes is the smaller, more romantic counterpoint. This is a boutique finger lime farm tour with gin tasting, a private teepee picnic and a local-produce hamper among the Glass House Mountains. Peachester Fresh, Dacelo Distilling, Maleny Cheese, Buderim Ginger, Nutworks and Green Valley Fingerlimes all have a seat at the picnic.
At Yandina, the Maroochy River does half the hosting. The Rocks Curated Plate Long Lunch sets its table on the bank, then feeds it in the generous old way: shared plates, three hours of drinks, heritage pork, beef rib, roast potatoes and pudding made for second helpings.
Unexpected Plates & One-Off Experiences
The best festivals leave room for surprise. OPA! Smashing Supper at Lyra in Maroochydore brings Greek celebration to the table with shared food, drinks, and plate-smashing, while Nourish Body, Mind & Soul takes a more contemplative path at Chenrezig Institute in Eudlo. Maleny’s Curated Nine Holes and Long Lunch weaves golf into the festival spirit, and Sunshine Social’s Cotton Tree dinner with Seabourne Gin gives the program its coastal, cocktail-lit finish.
How to Plan Your Curated Plate Weekend
Choose your headline event first, then let the Sunshine Coast fill in around it. If seafood is the draw, base yourself near Mooloolaba and build the weekend around the wharf, river and a long lunch by the water. If the hinterland is calling, follow the fire inland through Kenilworth, Maleny, Montville and the Glass House Mountains, with orchards, farm gates and country roads doing half the work.
Pair one major booking with one slower pleasure: a beach walk before breakfast, a distillery stop after lunch, a market wander, a farm tour, a bakery detour, a second coffee in a town you had not planned to stop in. The Curated Plate gives you the reservations. The Sunshine Coast gives you everything between them.
The Curated Plate returns from 24th July to 2nd August 2026. Tickets are limited across the program, so explore now and book your Sunshine Coast winter escape before headline events book out.
