Riding the waves of incredible fresh produce flowing in from regional New South Wales with the season’s warmer temperatures, Sydney’s springtime food and wine festivals transform the city into a giant al fresco dining room. Here’s how to eat your way through a lip-smacking line-up of gourmet events, while discovering the extraordinary diversity of the state’s wine regions and immersing in the city’s thriving brewery and distillery scenes.

Swing into spring in St Ives

Begin your epicurean expedition by sampling seasonal treats from producers all across the Sydney basin at the annual St Ives Food and Wine Festival, on the St Ives Village Green in the city’s north on 21 September 2025. 

Pick up flavour-packed, hand-crafted salami from Goose on the Loose, which sources local meats from its base near Windsor in the Hawkesbury region, and inhale the yeasty goodness in the offerings of Great Southern Mead & Honey from the South Coast town of Thirroul.

Try fiery tipples from North Ryde’s Buffalo Vale Distillery and the Hunter Valley’s KissOfire Liqueurs, taste sublime wines from Hunter estates such as Petersons Wines and Savannah Estate, and line your belly with multicultural meals from the likes of Sydney’s Sofrito Paella and The Gnocchi Way, all while enjoying live music and entertaining the kids with farm animal encounters, pony rides and more.

Celebrate the harvest moon 

Take yourself out of the ordinary when you join the Cabramatta Moon Festival, a traditional Southeast Asian harvest celebration, on 28 September 2025. Gaze out at the ever-changing streetscapes on the 50-minute train ride from the city centre to Western Sydney’s Cabramatta, then get ready to salute the full moon with one of the country’s largest Vietnamese communities. 

Be captivated by music and cultural performances, tuck into delicious street food (or angle for a seat at one of Cabramatta’s many amazing Vietnamese eateries for a sit-down meal), watch elite teams from across the country vie for the top prize in the National Lion Dance Competition, and delight as a fireworks display lights up a town centre already glowing with paper lanterns.

If Cabramatta’s lunar celebrations fired your imagination, head to Millers Point above The Rocks for the Sydney Observatory’s own Moon Festival on 2 October 2025. Admire artist Truc Truong’s striking lanterns (you can make moon festival lanterns with Truc in her daily workshops from 30 September to 1 October, as well as in the hours before the main event begins on 2 October), thrill to lion dances by Sydney’s Qing Fong Dragon and Lion Dance Team, groove to tunes curated by DJ Small Fry and slurp up classic dishes by Mumma Le’s Vietnamese Kitchen. 

Sip some of the state’s fine wines

Make the most of late spring by seeking out NSW Wine Month events throughout November. This month-long celebration of the state’s 16 diverse wine regions features a series of pop-up cellar doors, indulgent long lunches and banquets paired with premium wines across the city. 

While the full line-up of events will be released in September, a highlight of the program that’s already locked in is the Sydney Cellar Door festival, on 8–9 November 2025 at First Fleet Park and Tallawoladah Lawn in The Rocks (between the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Circular Quay train station).

Meet some of the talented people crafting the extraordinary wines you encounter as you sample the fruits of around 40 premium wineries from across the state. Alongside a strong contingent from the Hunter Valley – home to the country’s first vine plantings – Orange and Mudgee, expect to find exceptional wines from smaller regions such as Gundagai and the Southern Highlands.

Master seafood at the markets

In between spring festivals, Sydney offers up plenty of other epicurean adventures, including learning the art of cooking all things marine during one of Sydney Seafood School’s cooking classes at the Sydney Fish Market, in the inner-city suburb of Pyrmont. 

Find out how to create a show-stopping crudo and the perfect ceviche at a sashimi workshop; see how to ethically handle a live crab as you prepare an authentic Singapore chilli mud crab dish; or mix and match prawns, squid, mussels and more as you conjure up a mouth-watering paella, that most flavourful of Spanish seafood dishes. 

If you prefer to let others do the cooking for you, get a feel for the working fish market by joining an early-morning Behind The Scenes Tour of the busy auction floor, or sauntering in after a leisurely breakfast for the Morning Walking Tour departing at 10am, before dining at one of the market’s cafés and restaurants. 

Hop between craft breweries

Sydney Beer Week (20 – 26 October) returns with events spanning the entire city, from the Northern Beaches to the Inner West and CDB. This week is all about showcasing the best of Sydney's craft beer scene alongside behind-the-scenes experiences.  

Throughout spring, find the perfect bespoke beer to pair with your next meal of spring goodness on the Inner West Ale Trail through the hip Inner Sydney suburbs of Marrickville, Enmore, Camperdown and St Peters. 

Follow your Dave’s Travel Group guide on a Marrickville Brewery Tour for an insightful introduction to the local craft beer scene, or jump on the interactive trail map for directions and profiles of individual breweries such as The Grifter Brewing Co, Philter Public Bar and Brewery and Batch Brewing, to name just a few.

Enjoy a succulent Chinese-Australian meal at the retro Lucky Prawn restaurant at Marrickville’s Bob Hawke Beer & Leisure Centre, or try ales fermented with all sorts of wild yeasts and bacteria collected from flowers native to NSW at Wildflower Brewing & Blending’s Village cellar door, which it shares with Blue Mountains-based Mountain Culture Beer Co. 

As you wander happily from one brewery to another, you’ll notice there are also plenty of craft distilleries dotted around Marrickville. Depending on your mood and the time of day, you might like to pair a slice of Pizza Oltra with a gin-based cocktail at Poor Toms, sip a signature cocktail of ‘bathtub gin’ at Unexpected Guest, settle in with the perfect negroni at Ester Spirits, or blend your own botanicals during a gin-crafting class at Moonshiner Gin Distillery.

Bliss out beyond the beach

Across the harbour, towel dry after a balmy spring afternoon dip at Manly Beach, brush the last specks of golden sand off your ankles and seek out some of the craft breweries and artisanal distilleries lining The Brookie Trail. 

Named for the Northern Beaches suburb of Brookvale neighbouring Manly, this collection of local favourite watering holes and eateries includes 4 Pines Brewing Co’s Truck Bar, where you can choose from 20 fresh brews lining the tray of a 1960s Dodge pick-up truck to go with your buttermilk-fried chicken. You can also linger over an ale as you enjoy a live band at Bucketty’s Brewing Co, dig into a woodfired pizza at 7th Day Brewery, or lean into the beachside vibe with a Queensie Lager (named for nearby Queenscliff Beach) at Nomad Brewing Co. 

Go behind the scenes on a tour of Manly Spirits Co. Distillery and Tasting Bar or attend its gin school; swoon over the drinks made with native-botanical gins and Australian hardwood-matured spirits at Goodradigbee Distillers’ Goodbar cocktail bar; or head over to Seadrift, Australia’s first non-alcoholic distillery, to take a masterclass in the art of zero alcohol mixology.