The insiders' guide

The full program for The Age Good Food Month presented by Citi is being unveiled today.

More than 300 individual event listings will create a maze of eating and drinking activity, involving hundreds of restaurants, food businesses and producers across Melbourne and regional Victoria from November 1.

Highlights will include visits by global super-stars Daniel Patterson (Coi, San Francisco) and Alex Atala (D.O.M., Sao Paulo). Ben and Dan's Excellent Adventure with Attica's Ben Shewry (November 11) will sell out in minutes, as will tickets to Alex Atala's Brazilian Beach Party/Galinhada (that's Portuguese for ''chicken feast'') at Stokehouse Cafe (November 26).

Expect great drinks, great music, great chicken (a D.O.M. after-hours tradition) and insider insights into Atala's new book, D.O.M.: Discovering Brazilian Ingredients (Phaidon).

To kick things off, Noma's Rene Redzepi will speak frankly about life at the very top of the global gastronomic ladder as he presents A Work in Progress: Journal, Recipes and Snapshots (Phaidon) at the Wheeler Centre (October 30). His first session was booked out in seven hours, so get in quick for the later talk (8.15-9.15pm).

The wok flames will be leaping and the bamboo baskets steaming at the glorious jumble of restaurants, bars, music and lion dancers that is the Night Noodle Markets (November 18-30). It's Melbourne's first taste of the authentic Asian-inspired hawkers' market that brings Sydneysiders out in their thousands nightly during The SMH Good Food Month each October.

The rest of the Good Food Month program is laid out by event style, covering the day from breakfast (Breakfast Club) to the small hours (Supper Club), with plenty of pit-stops in between (Let's Do Lunch, The Ultimate High Tea, Bar Hop, World Dinners and Let's Do Dessert). There are regional adventures and food tours, culinary pilgrimages and hands-on instruction in everything from couscous rolling to pulling the perfect espresso (Instant Expert).

Get the idea? Getting excited? Here are another 20 top festival picks from the Good Food Month team.

1. Global Classics with Native Twists at Charcoal Lane (November 14) is just one of 25 World Dinners, the best way to explore Melbourne's culinary diversity.

Ireland, Cambodia, Morocco, New Orleans, New Zealand and the Netherlands colour the menus at restaurants such as Southpaw, The Common Man, The Last Jar and Red Spice Road QV.

2. Private Dining gets airborne with A Day on the Island. Who's up for a quick flight to Flinders Island with hatted chef, Rob Kabboord, of Merricote? You'll be home in time for dinner (November 9).

3. Young chefs do their thing as Four Young Top Guns get cooking at Stokehouse with Ollie Gould (2014 Young Chef of the Year) and three of his predecessors. Also strutting their stuff during November are 2013 Young Chef of the Year Mark Briggs, of Dig a Pony (Totally 1980s, Drink & Dine November 29), and 2003 winner Daniel Wilson, of Huxtable, offers a jalapeno and cheddar croquette followed by a main course daily (weekdays) as part of Let's Do Lunch.

4. Surprise Saturday Lunches include Sinful Saturdays at Good Food Guide best new restaurant Saint Crispin and a Vintage Jacques Reymond lunch that works its way through some of the soon-to-be retired three hatters' most requested dishes from the past 25 years (Saturdays throughout November).

5. In Hats Off Dinners, Jacques Reymond throws out the menu for one night with Memories of Brazil, while the team at Koots Salle a Manger stages A French Alps Odyssey. Also in Hats Off Dinners, journey back to the future with The Classics from Sydney's Rockpool (closing and relocating in October) at Rosetta (Tuesdays in November).

6. The best beverages get a look in via the Drink & Dine series of events, including a serious Champagne Dinner with Guillaume Brahimi and Chris Morrison at Bistro Guillaume (November 25) or Dinner with James Halliday at Crown's No. 8 by John Lawson (November 14). Beer is the focus at Rockwell and Sons's Block Party! (November 7, 14) and throughout Good Pub Grub, where selected establishments beer it up with braises, batters and brines. Think low-country beer boil crab with corn and kransky at Miss Katie's Crab Shack or beer-plank smoked barra at The Merrywell (daily).

7. There is room for BYO too, or should that be GYO? Grow It Local celebrates home food gardeners for a crowd-farmed supper after hours. The Local Growers Supper at Queen Vic Market (November 24) includes a special price for BYO GYOers. How our food is grown and where it's heading underpins a full spread of Down to Earth, Regional Table and Kitchen Gardening events, including Give a Fork About Palm Oil with Sustainable Table (November 26).

8. Find out about everything from sake at Chef's Armoury (November 2, 3 and 23) to Artisan Gelato at Gelato Messina (November 9, 16, 23 and 30) and the food of Argentina at True South (November 14). Talk & Taste is all about the experts and education via the palate.

9. While Good Food Month is all about one-off events, the concept comes to the fore in Pop-ups & Parties. There's everything from a street-food celebration at South Wharf's American Block Party and Good Food's Karen Martini popping up at Prahran Market to put her new cookbook, Everyday, through its paces (November 19).

10. Melbourne's Rooftops & Laneways see extra activity throughout November. A Patch in the Sky at The Grain Store includes a vegetable growing masterclass with CERES resident farmer Ingo Meissner (November 16) and at a Farm to City Laneway Lunch at Comme, the turf is literally rolled out in Alfred Place (November 23). Not sure if the cows are coming to town too, but beef from southern Gippsland is on the menu.

11. In Art & Food, late-night projections at Cumulus-Up run with a late-night menu (nightly from November 2), and The Art of Food at The Substation (November 14) truly fulfils the brief with tasting plates reinterpreting the art on display. There's a night with author Elliott Perlman at Pei Modern (November 18) and readings from To Kill a Mockingbird, illustrated with a southern tasting feast, at Balwyn's Arthur Radley bistrot (November 16).

12. Keep it all in the family with Gen Dine Family Dinners at Matteo's (a shared menu with dessert and mocktail - various dates) or nightly Family Table set family menus at Mama Baba.

13. In Ultimate High Teas, The Garden Party High Tea at Park Hyatt is all about spring, while a Vietnamese High Tea at Saigon Sally puts a new spin on an old favourite.

14. For in the Mix: Great Thermomix Chefs of Melbourne, The Age's Dani Valent assembles a stellar cast of chefs for dinner at Brooks, including Darren Purchese, Paul Wilson, Pierre Roelofs and Brooks' own Nic Poelart, of course (Talk & Taste, November 19).

15. How do you like your eggs? Try them poached with lox latkes, scrambled with chorizo and manchego, crisp-poached with chilli jam or with new-season broad beans, asparagus and potatoes. That's Breakfast Club at St Ali, Lux Foundry, Campos Coffee and Bowery to Williamsburg, and that's just for starters.

16. Give The Age Good Food Guide a workout via Let's Do Lunch: great deals and fabulous menus at favourites such as Albert St Food & Wine, Izakaya Den, Sake and B'stilla.

17. Sicilian Sundays at Mister Bianco recreate Sunday Family Lunch at chef Joe Vargetto's place. Or find out what peka is, at an Old School Croatia lunch at Dalmatino (Sundays throughout October).

18. Go Bar Hopping with Tanqueray gin cocktails everywhere from Seamstress to Saigon Sally, Gazi and Gin Palace, of course. Each clever cocktail is served with a cute bar snack. How about High Thai Tea at Half Moon served with a Thai coconut fish cake, or Maeve Fox's gin, lemon and cassis creation paired with black-forest rocky road?

19. Night owls can do Supper Club tacos at Mamasita, a tapas plate at Movida Next Door or dumplings at Oriental Teahouse (nightly).

20. When all else fails, spend a night with The Rat Pack, as Greg Malouf, Ray Capaldi and Matteo Pignatelli present a Mad Men-styled evening at Matteo's with martinis, champagne, canapes, dinner and live lounge music (November 12).

JOANNA SAVIL, ASHA XAVIER AND RENEE RYAN