Broadsheet and Melissa Leong Are Hosting a One-Off Dinner by Christine Manfield – and You’re Invited

Sparks will fly when the pioneering chef collaborates with a young gun at Melbourne’s Hopper Joint. In partnership with Cat Amongst the Pigeons, here are all the details.

For food industry heavyweight Melissa Leong, there’s nothing more exciting than a novel combination. The food critic, TV host and consultant has made a splash over the years bringing together chefs with big reputations, but very different backgrounds, for one-off dining events.

“That kind of stuff really lights up my brain,” she says. “When you throw the right combination together, you can achieve alchemy that just can’t be sustained in a regular restaurant concept.”

So when Broadsheet and Barossa winemaker Cat Amongst the Pigeons asked Leong to play matchmaker for a one-night-only event in Melbourne earlier this year, she was all in.

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“Cat Amongst the Pigeons and Broadsheet came to me with a blank slate to create the kind of dining event I want,” she says. “They let me curate who I wanted to work with, and I let the real talent do their best after that. My skill is in curation – theirs is everything else.”

That event – which saw Lee Ho Fook chef Victor Liong and Bar Lourinha’s Matt McConnell blend Spanish and Portuguese with Malay and Cantonese cuisine – was a sell-out. “Tickets were snapped up, and it translated into an evening of truly collaborative and thought-provoking food, wine and conversation,” Leong says. “I was absolutely blown away.”

Now, preparations are underway for two follow-ups. The first, at Sydney’s Palazzo Salato on November 14, pairs celebrated Sri Lankan chef and food writer O Tama Carey with Love Tilly Group’s Scott McComas-Williams. For the second, at Melbourne’s Hopper Joint on November 20, house chef Ronith Arlikatti cooks alongside the legendary Christine Manfield.

Manfield – once an important mentor to Leong – was a pioneer of the border-hopping style that came to define Australian dining in the 1990s. Over dozens of trips, she became an expert in South Asian cuisine, adapting dishes and ingredients from across the region to her own cooking style, showcased at her restaurants in Sydney and London.

“Christine Manfield is a trailblazer, no two ways about it,” says Leong. “She put South Asian spice on a whole new level back in the day, celebrating ancient, diverse and nuanced flavours that the dining scene had in many ways overlooked.”

Hopper Joint, meanwhile, is part of a new wave of Melbourne venues – including Toddy Shop and Enter Via Laundry – making stylish, note-perfect forays into regional South Asian cuisine. Inspired by co-owner Brahman Perera’s Sri Lankan family meals, Hopper Joint is a lively space turning out street-food snacks and hoppers with curries and sambols. Alikatta, its young head chef, has worked everywhere from Bangkok’s Michelin-starred Gaggan to Daylesford fine diner Lake House and Melbourne favourite Sunda.

When the old-guard chef ventures into the exciting new Greville Street kitchen, Leong anticipates sparks. It’s shaping up to be a “truly integrative collaboration … showcasing our chefs’ styles distinctly yet harmoniously”. And it should be a ripping good time to boot: “Brem and [his partner] Jason [Jones] have a knack for creating unbeatable atmosphere and fun … I know we’ll be floored by this collaboration.”

The former Masterchef host has a fitting partner for the event in Cat Amongst the Pigeons. “Their DNA is all about surprise and juxtaposition, and I am all for that.” Each dish Alikatta and Manfield create at Hopper Joint will be matched to drops from the winery’s Fat Cat range, adding another interesting dynamic to the collaboration.

“As the name suggests, Cat’s wines deliver on big, rich flavour and outstanding quality,” says Leong. “It’s the perfect complement to Christine and Hopper Joint’s South Asian flavours.” The label’s brand-new sparkling shiraz will also make an appearance, served slightly chilled to temper its chocolate and stewed fruit flavours. Leong says it’s quickly become a personal favourite.

These events, with all their moving parts, recall Leong’s work with the boundary-pushing TOYS, or Taste of Young Sydney, which she co-founded with Morgan McGlone (Bar Copains, Belles Hot Chicken) back in 2010. TOYS brought together a group of ambitious chefs and sommeliers for a series of degustation dinners around Sydney. These singular events solidified Leong’s conviction that curated, one-off encounters show local dining culture at its best.

“I miss that mad scientist approach to dining events,” she says. “It’s not practical, or even sustainable, but it is a ton of fun and 50 levels of tasty."

“Collaborations are an opportunity to share ideas with people outside of your own world of work for a night or two. I think it gives culinary creatives an opportunity to do something outside of the confines of a regular restaurant structure, which can expand and shift their own perspectives. For diners, it’s an opportunity to meet someone new, or just have a fun night out experiencing a menu you’ll never get again.”

Tickets will go on sale shortly - follow @broadsheet_melb for more details.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Cat Amongst the Pigeons. Remember to DrinkWise.