Help Shape the Indian Food Experience at Melbourne Diwali 2026
We are asking whether cooking should be part of the programme in 2026. Tell us the dish you would want made properly, who you would learn from, and how you would watch.
Every family has one dish that only one person can make properly, and everybody knows exactly who that person is. The mithai that appears once a year. The snack that never quite tastes the same when you buy it. Diwali is carried in food as much as it is in light and sound.
Melbourne Diwali is on Saturday 31 October 2026 at Marvel Stadium Square, Docklands. Food has always been part of the day, served from the trucks and trailers around the square. This year we are asking whether cooking itself should be part of the programme.
The idea is still taking shape, and we would like the community to help decide what it becomes. Nothing below is settled. These are possibilities, not promises, and your answers will help shape what happens next.
The dish you grew up with, or one you have never tried
There is a difference between knowing how a dish should taste and knowing how to make it. Many of us know besan ladoo, chakli, kaju katli or a family shrikhand by taste alone, because the method lives in somebody's hands rather than in a book, and often in another suburb or another country.
Would you want to watch one of those made properly, start to finish, with the spices named out loud as they go in?
Or would you rather meet something new? Bengali nimki, Maharashtrian karanji, Gujarati mohanthal, a Chettinad or Hyderabadi dish you have never cooked. Still Indian, or from anywhere Diwali is kept. Simply new to you.
If a dish comes to mind, tell us what it is. That is the single most useful thing you can send us.
Celebrity chef, restaurant chef or home cook: who would you learn from?
Would you like to see a celebrity chef at Melbourne Diwali, cooking alongside cooks from this community? Would a restaurant chef, a home cook or a community elder teach you something a television kitchen could not?
Tell us what you would want from the person at the bench: a name you recognise, a story you have not heard, or a method you could follow at home.
How you would watch: the big screen, a livestream or a recipe to keep
If there were live cooking at the festival, the vision would go to the big screen, and a camera can hold a close-up on somebody's hands in a way a crowd never can.
Would that be enough? Or would you want it on your phone as well, so you could keep watching from the queue, from the grass at the far end, or while standing with a sleeping child on your shoulder?
And what would you want afterwards: a short video, a written recipe, or nothing beyond having been there?
Captions, explanations in more than one language, and a way to send a question from your phone are all possible. Tell us which of them would actually matter to you.
What a session could look like
A session could be a few minutes you drop into on your way past, or a longer demonstration you sit down for. Both are possible, and they suit different evenings.
Things you might want from it:
- Sit and watch
- Ask the cook questions
- Bring the children to watch
- Cook along at home, from a recipe or a livestream
- Take a recipe home
We would also want the practical things right. What dietary information would you need? Would explanations in more than one language help? Are there accessibility needs we should plan for?
Tell us what we have missed
Your ideal food experience may be something not mentioned here at all, and that is worth more to us than agreement.
Tell us the dish you would love to learn, the kind of cook you would stop to learn from, how you would prefer to watch, and what we have missed entirely.
Share your ideas in the comments, or email info@melbournediwali.com.au. You can also explore the festival stalls and food vendors, or plan your visit for Saturday 31 October 2026.