By Richard Cornish
Latin Festival
Frankie Martinez is one of New York's best-known Latin American dance masters. After discovering the style at a nightclub while on leave from the US Navy in Miami, he went on to become one of the most influential figures in the Latin movement. He's in town this weekend as part of the ninth annual Melbourne Latin Dance Festival, which has attracted dancers from New York, Brazil, Spain, Argentina, South Africa and Australia. The festival is being held at Jason Coleman's Ministry of Dance, which tonight has a Great Gatsby theme.
Learn how to make traditional Italian sausages and salume.
1/64 Sutton St, Ends tomorrow night, melbournelatinfestival.com.au
Arts House
North Melbourne hosts the ninth annual Melbourne Latin Dance Festival.
North Melbourne's historic Town Hall has been turned into a terrific arts resource, with spaces set aside for performance, rehearsal and development. While Arts House recently held a successful international dance festival, Dance Massive, it is now preparing for the Yirramboi First Nations Festival (May 5-14) with Shore. This four-part performance is held over several days and includes community action, story, performance and a feast. In the meantime, visitors are free to wander into Arts House, take a comfortable chair, put on a pair of headphones and take in The Listening Program, 10 years of audio works. Join the mailing list to get special offers on previews of new works.
521 Queensberry St, 9322 3720, Mon-Fri 9am-5pm
Embassy Café
Since 1962 taxi drivers have stopped at this Spencer Street cafe to eat fried food, smoke and discuss their customers' peccadillos. The petrol bowsers have gone but the modernist servo can still be seen under the advertising signage. While having a double burger with the lot for $10.50 last week, we overheard grey-suited limo drivers talking about what a Russian businessman was doing with his "date" on the way to the casino. When the discussion got really hot the drivers switched to their native Greek to finish the story. The café is open 24 hours, which is perfect for those who've spent the whole night clubbing in the city.
Sara Grazie shows people how to make traditional Italian sausages.
547 Spencer St, West Melbourne, 9328 1830
Guild of Objects
Get crafty with The Guild of Objects.
This shared studio space in an old industrial quarter is where you can learn to throw a pot, make a bracelet or paint a watercolour. It is also the retail space for more than 60 artists who handcraft everyday objects, from cups and plates to scarves.
690 Queensberry St, Wed-Fri 10am-4pm, Sat 10am-5pm. guildofobjects.com
The former Town Hall is now the Arts House, with spaces for performance, rehearsal and development.
Sausages Made Simple
This is sausage-making workshop is held in the former Railway Hotel, opposite the North Melbourne station. Learn to make fresh and fermented sausages and salume from "Sausage Queen" Sara Grazia. This is also the place to buy your skins, spices and mincers to make sausages at home. This winter Sara is opening the old bar, complete with original lead lighting and gantry, to serve salume, charcuterie and good wines.
Lulu cafe and gallery owner Panagiota Kagkali offers food for body and soul.
118 Ireland St, West Melbourne (03) 9329 4422, sausagesmadesimple.com.au
Lulu
The Embassy Cafe is open 24 hours.
This cafe and gallery made a small stir on social media when it launched the Shit Gardens photographic exhibition, a collection of images celebrating the prosaic and banal nature of Australian suburban landscaping. Lulu embraces that home-away-from-home feel that made the Brunswick Street cafes seem so special in the 1980s. A small library out back allows visitors to admire reproductions of early German modernist painters. In the courtyard, under a roof of wisteria, musicians play on weekends by the outdoor bar. Out front, on a copper counter, great cakes and coffee are served during the day and then, from 6pm-10pm, pan-global dishes such as cotechino and lentils or trout rillettes are served with rather good wines.
Lulu Cafe and Gallery, 506 Queensberry St, Wed-Sat 8am-10pm, Sun 8am-4pm, 9326 4494
Next Week: Healesville
6reasons@richardcornish.com.au; Twitter and Insta @Foodcornish