Dark Mofo’s Winter Feast Is Back With 70-Plus Stallholders, Fire And A Michelin-Starred Guest Chef

We love the art, of course, but Dark Mofo’s Winter Feast 2026 is a cold-weather ritual in its own right. Returning to the Nipaluna/Hobart waterfront this June, the Feast will fill Salamanca Lawns and Princes Wharf Shed 1 with more than 70 stallholders, fire, music and some of Tasmania’s best winter produce.

Running across both festival weekends, from Thursday 11th to Sunday 15th June and Thursday 18th to Sunday 21st June, the Feast is set to be one of the festival’s most anticipated gathering points. This year also comes with a fresh edge: around 40 per cent of stallholders are appearing for the first time, making the 2026 line-up broader, bolder and more diverse than ever.

Overwhelmed? Don’t be. We’ve pulled together a curated guide to the bites and sips worth planning around, from Michelin-starred menu items and local favourites to luxurious desserts, festival cocktails, hot winter drinks and every shade of Tasmanian wine.

Here’s what we’ll be making a beeline for on the hedonism hit list.

The Michelin-starred moment

It wouldn’t be the Feast without the celebrity centrepiece. Floriano Pellegrino of the Michelin-starred Bros’ in Puglia, Italy, is whipping up one-off specialties with Roberto Mele of Hobart’s beloved MAMA bakery. Italian-style bakery meets avant-garde fine dining, with croissant miso and Mele’s grandmother’s broad bean purée with chicory to scoop onto focaccietta, a Tasmanian oyster-and-oyster-mushroom combo, wild deer with capers and sardines, and sweet bites of ricotta and pickled mulberry tart with flaky pastry.

Feast-goers can also try a very unusual amuse-bouche typical of Bros’ creativity: kissing a mould of Pellegrino’s chef partner Isabella Potì’s lips to taste the limoncello foam inside. It is deranged in the exact way Dark Mofo should be.

Bougie bites

It’s sacrilege to come to Tasmania and not taste the sea, whether it’s downing freshly shucked Bruny Island oysters or seeing what celeb chef Analiese Gregory can do with Three Friends Abalone from the west coast’s pristine waters. She’ll also be grilling west coast scallops in wakame butter, while those of the veg persuasion should make a beeline for David Moyle’s bull kelp arancini, with fried cheesy rice balls topped with anything from braised abalone to fresh truffle.

Couldn’t get a seat at Scholé? Have a taste of their crispy potato mochi with umami mushroom gravy, with Luke Burgess bringing the tiny ten-seat Hobart restaurant to the Feast for its debut. We’re loving Brine’s “Unhappy Meal”, a gloriously moody trio of crumbed olives, fries and dirty martini, and Westside Laundry’s potato cakes with crème fraîche and avruga caviar are a touch of elevated nostalgia.

Wintery flavours abound, like Crazy Scone’s black truffle garlic and cheese bread, Truffle Farm’s charred beef and Tassie whisky meat stick, Rough Rice’s warm, spiced fermented turmeric rice and, as always, Mona’s Heavy Metal Kitchen lighting up the night with flame cooking and sizzling grills, led by executive chef Vince Trim.

Eat global like a local

This Winter Feast has a handpicked curation from Hobart’s diverse food scene: a Yunnan-style flaky pork-stuffed baba flatbread, spit-roasted lechon pork with Java rice, rich beef rib korma and bakso, an Indonesian meatball soup and jazzed-up prawn and scallop toast.

Sandwich fans should pick up one of Lilly Trewartha’s katsu sandos or Marla Singer’s New Orleans classic, the many-layered muffuletta. South is also back with slow-cooked possum bao, adding another very Tasmanian curveball to a line-up already stacked with heat, spice, smoke and comfort.

Dessert after dark

Hobart newcomer Doux Cafe has a hazelnut choux bun we’re already aching for: a delicate pastry with caramelised fig ice cream and hazelnut praline, topped with a crisp tuile. If you tend towards richer sweets, make Killara Distillery’s chocolate brownie with whisky caramel sauce a priority — obviously best paired with a dram — alongside Basque Moons’ melt-in-your-mouth burnt Basque cheesecake or All Things Cherry’s luscious cherry pie, oozing Mofo-appropriate red, with a lick of fresh cream.

Dessert keeps pace across the rest of the Feast, too, with Food Culture’s rose and walnut Yunnan baba, Canopy Ice Cream’s olive oil ice cream and Nectar Eater’s gooey chocolate chip cookie, which happens to be vegan.

What to drink

Sidle up to the bar for festival-only cocktails, like Aloft and Taylor & Smith’s vibrant Nasturtium Gin cocktail, Tasmaniac Distillers’ Strawberry Rosé spritz, Land Nautical Distillery’s drinkable riff on a rhubarb tart, Salvage Drink Co.’s Mad Hatter cocktails, including a tiramisu espresso martini, and a whole line-up from the award-winning Rude Boy bar team. For a taste of something truly unique, sample native botanicals in Local Absinthe, or go non-alc with Oxbow Lab’s sustainably sourced ferments.

But you shouldn’t overlook Tasmania’s cool-climate vine: we’ll be picking up Pinot from the likes of CHATTO, Sonnen, Made by Monks, Future Perfect — which they’ve paired with a luxe beef bourguignon doughnut — and L’appel Wines, as well as tasting our way through Mona’s Moorilla and Domaine A labels. Then again, few things can beat snuggling up by the fire on a winter’s night with a hot buttered whisky from Battery Point Distillery or the fragrant sips of Willie Smith’s hot spiced cider.

The drinks list is built for cold hands: hot buttered whisky, festival-only cocktails, Moo Brew’s Dark Mofo-exclusive Dark Lager, cool-climate wines and non-alcoholic brews using native botanicals and Tasmanian fruit.

Need to know

More than 100 musical acts will move through Winter Feast across the two festival weekends, beginning with The Gathering, a First Nations-led opening night centred on the Matriarchs of Music. The line-up includes Emma Donovan, Bumpy, Stiff Gins, DENNI, BADASSMUTHA and more.

Winter Feast is cash-free, free for under 16s with a parent or guardian, and will host a free Community Day on Sunday 21st June. There will also be a private sensory-friendly session for people with disability and their families from 3pm to 4pm that day, with registration essential.

Dates: Thursday 11th to Sunday 15th June and Thursday 18th to Sunday 21st June 2026.

If Winter Feast has you plotting a longer cold-weather escape, keep going with our guide to the best things to do in Hobart this winter, then book your way through the city with our pick of the best restaurants in Hobart.