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Event Spotlight
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Queensland Events
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Hospitality Education
When Opera Queensland asked us back for the fifth consecutive year to cater the Festival of Outback Opera Long Lunch, we didn't hesitate — not even for a single one of the 1,300 kilometres that separate our Brisbane kitchen from the red dust of Longreach. This is one of those events that reminds our team exactly why they work in events. Big skies, extraordinary people, and a long lunch table set against the backdrop of the QANTAS Founders Museum — it simply doesn't get more Queensland than this.
What makes this event unlike almost anything else on our calendar isn't just the setting. It's the scale of what it takes to get there. This is mobilised catering in its truest sense — an exercise in planning, logistics, teamwork and adaptability that begins long before a single canape is plated.
Photography: Murray Summerville, Omar Nolan, Paul Blackmore
Hear from the Events & Sales Team
The Festival of Outback Opera is a signature annual event that celebrates the magic of opera in one of Queensland's most iconic outback landscapes. For the past five years, we've had the privilege of delivering the Long Lunch — a seated, multi-course dining experience for 165 guests (plus crew meals) that sits alongside world-class performances under the open sky.
Our relationship with Opera Queensland has been built on trust, repeat delivery and a shared commitment to giving guests an experience that matches the grandeur of the occasion. In previous years we've travelled to Winton; in 2026, the event moved to Longreach — a shift in location that required us to re-examine and rebuild our logistics plan from the ground up.
If you're curious about how our team approaches a brief of this scale, our event planning process is worth a read — from initial consultation right through to event-day execution.
Goals, Priorities and Non-Negotiables
The Long Lunch is exactly that — a long, leisurely, celebratory meal. Our brief was to deliver a three-course sit-down lunch that felt refined and considered, without ever feeling stiff. Guests had travelled from across the country to be in Longreach for the festival; the meal needed to honour that effort and complement the theatre of the setting.
From a food perspective, we were committed to championing Queensland flavours and native ingredients wherever possible — bush tomato, saltbush, lemon myrtle, macadamia. From a logistics perspective, the non-negotiable was simple: get everything there, on time, in perfect condition, regardless of how far from home we were operating.
Key Challenges & Considerations
Catering 165 people in Brisbane is one thing. Catering 165 people in Longreach — 1,300 kilometres from our production kitchen — is something else entirely. Our key challenges were:
Getting the food there. We prepared a full food pallet in Brisbane and arranged refrigerated road freight to transport it to Longreach — a 2-Day journey covering 1,300 kilometres. The cold chain is non-negotiable for food safety, and working with reliable freight partners is critical to making remote catering like this work without compromise.
Getting the team there. A core team of five — including our Director Ammie — flew from Brisbane to Longreach with a transfer stop in Barakula, making for approximately six hours of travel each way. The team is on location for three days: a full day of set-up, event day, and pack-down. Remote catering requires the right people — not just skilled, but adaptable.
Partnering with the right people on the ground. One of the most incredible aspects of this event is the infrastructure that makes it possible: the Outback College of Hospitality's "Big Red Truck" — more on that below.
A great sign for an event away from home. The team won the meat raffle at the Longreach Tavern the night before the event.
Hear from the Kitchen Team
Designing a menu for this event is always one of our favourite creative challenges. We want something that feels right for the outback setting — grounded, generous, and full of character — while still delivering the elegance you'd expect at an opera long lunch. Native ingredients sit front and centre.
The Menu:
CANAPÉS:
Fried Pork Belly, sweet & sour glaze, spring onion & sesame (GF/DF)
Native Cured Kangaroo, popped grains, bush tomato, dukkah & saltbush (DF)
Compressed Cucumber, macadamia crème & charcoal pearls (VG/GF)
The canapé selection nods to the landscape without being gimmicky. Native cured kangaroo with bush tomato and saltbush isn't just a dish — it's a celebration of place. The compressed cucumber with macadamia crème gives our plant-based guests something beautiful and considered, rather than an afterthought.
THREE-COURSE LUNCH:
TO START - Breads & Butters
ENTREE - Smoked Chicken, heirloom beetroot, macadamia cream, puffed buckwheat, strawberry & rhubarb vinaigrette
A dish with wonderful textural contrast — the warmth of smoked chicken against the tartness of strawberry and rhubarb, brought together by the earthiness of puffed buckwheat and a generous macadamia cream. The kind of entrée that feels light but leaves an impression.
MAIN - Braised Beef Cheek, horseradish mash, wilted kale, saltbush & red wine date sauce (GF/DF)
Beef cheek is everything a long lunch main should be — slow-cooked, generous, and deeply satisfying. The saltbush and red wine date sauce brings a native Australian touch that ties the dish back to where we are. It's the centrepiece of the meal and one of our team's favourite dishes to execute, even in the most demanding conditions.
DESSERT - Lemon Myrtle Strawberry Shortcake
A dessert that manages to be both delicate and distinctly Australian. Lemon myrtle is one of our all-time favourite native ingredients to cook with — bright, fragrant and completely unique. Paired with fresh strawberry and the tenderness of a well-made shortcake, it's the perfect way to close a long afternoon in the Queensland sun.
Curious about how we design menus for events like this? Our menu philosophy — locally sourced, seasonally considered, genuinely delicious — is one we apply whether we're catering in Brisbane or in the outback.
Hear from the Front of House Team
Staffing requirements and team structure
For this event, we travel with a tight, trusted team of five: our Director Ammie, two front of house staff, and two chefs. There's no margin for someone having an off day when you're 1,300 kilometres from your base — every person on this team is there because they are exceptional at what they do, calm under pressure, and genuinely love what they brings to an event like this.
On top of the separate 2 day journey for the food to be transported from Brisbane to Longreach, the three-day commitment from our team is real. Day one is travel, followed by a site visit, and check of the food delivery. Day Two is the event day itself, kicking off from 7am to set tables, brief hospitality students and ready for guest arrival at 11:15am, followed by flowing canape service and the main event, a three-course long lunch until 3pm - and total event pack down by 5pm. The team then finally gets a well deserved break before making the 6 hour journey back to Brisbane the following day.
The Big Red Truck: A Partnership Worth Talking About
One of the most remarkable parts of this event — and one we're enormously proud to be a part of — is our collaboration with the Outback College of Hospitality and their "Big Red Truck".
The Big Red Truck is a $2.6 million government-funded mobile hospitality facility, established in 2011 as a regional education initiative. It travels between schools across Longreach, Winton, Barcaldine, Blackall and Aramac — bringing big-city training facilities and real hospitality infrastructure to students in central western Queensland. Fully equipped with cutlery, crockery, linens and seating for up to 800 people, the truck is a remarkable piece of infrastructure that makes events of this scale possible in remote locations.
The success of the initiative over its 15-year history has been profound — so much so that many of the schools it originally served have since been able to build their own permanent, on-site hospitality facilities. The truck's mission continues to evolve.
For our team, the partnership goes beyond logistics. We actively collaborate with the Outback College of Hospitality to give their students real-world event experience — working alongside our team on event day, learning directly from our chefs and front of house leads in a live environment. It's the kind of education you simply can't replicate in a classroom, and it's something we feel deeply committed to supporting.
This is hospitality education at its most meaningful — students from regional Queensland gaining genuine industry experience at a major cultural event, supported by an extraordinary piece of public infrastructure. We leave every year feeling like the relationship is one of the most worthwhile things we do.
If you want to learn more about how Wine & Dine'm approaches community and education-focused work, you can read more on our sustainability and community page.
Service Style & Flow
Seated long lunches in remote locations require a different kind of service rhythm to a metropolitan gala. There's no strolling up to a station when the next town is two hours away — you set the stage before a single guest arrives and you commit to the run sheet.
Guests were welcomed with canapes on arrival, moving into a fully seated three-course service that unfolded at a relaxed but purposeful pace. With 165 guests plus crew meals to cater for, timing and synchronisation across kitchen and floor is everything. Our two chefs and front of house team operated seamlessly — partly because this is a team that has worked together, partly because this is our fifth time delivering this event. That continuity matters.
A moment that captures the energy or success of the event on the day
There's something about catering in the outback that brings out the best in the team. Stripped of the familiar comforts of our Brisbane base, relying on each other, working alongside students who are genuinely thriving in their moment — it creates an energy that's hard to describe and impossible to forget. Every year, the team comes back talking about Longreach (or previously, Winton) for weeks. That's the mark of a great event.
To understand why this event means so much to us, you have to go back further than five years.
Wine & Dine'm's relationship with Opera Queensland stretches back to the 2000s, when our team proudly served as the external caterer for QPAC (Queensland Performing Arts Centre) for six years — a tenure that included eight years of Opera Queensland sponsorship, and countless opening nights and program launches. We were there for the champagne-and-canape moments, the black-tie premieres, the pre-show excitement in those beautiful Brisbane venues. It was an era that shaped a lot of how we think about event hospitality to this day.
Then, as happens in this industry, both organisations moved in different directions. Years passed. But the respect and warmth for one another never went anywhere.
Fast forward to Beef Week 2021 in Rockhampton — Australia's premier beef industry event, drawing together producers, stakeholders and service providers from across the country. Wine & Dine'm were there delivering catering for the event. Opera Queensland were there too. Two old friends from the Brisbane events world, finding themselves side by side in Central Queensland — and just like that, a conversation began.
It was out of that reunion that Opera Queensland approached us with the opportunity to come on board for the Festival of Outback Opera Long Lunch. Five years on, here we are — 1,300 kilometres from Brisbane, in the outback, doing some of the most meaningful catering work of our careers. Sometimes the best partnerships are the ones that find their way back to you.
Five Years Running - What it means to Ammie & Craig
Returning to the Festival of Outback Opera Long Lunch for the fifth consecutive year is something the entire Wine & Dine'm team takes genuine pride in — but for our directors Ammie and Craig, it holds a particular significance.
Both of them will tell you that this event is one of their absolute favourites on the calendar - and always ensure at least one of them is available to be there in person. Not because it's the most logistically straightforward (it's very much not), but because of what it represents. They've built their careers on the belief that hospitality is a craft worth preserving — that the skills, the discipline, the artistry of catering are things that need to be actively passed on, not just assumed.
Seeing the students from the Outback College of Hospitality step into a real event environment, work alongside experienced professionals, and walk away with something they simply couldn't have learned in a classroom — that's what fuels them. Ammie and Craig know better than most that in metropolitan centres like Brisbane, aspiring hospitality professionals have access to extraordinary training opportunities, industry events and mentorship that young people in regional communities often don't. Events like this one — and partnerships like the Big Red Truck — help close that gap, in a tangible and lasting way.
The art of catering deserves to be alive and well in Longreach, in Winton, in Barcaldine and Blackall, just as much as it does in any Brisbane venue. Watching that happen in real time, year after year, is something that never gets old.
We also want to acknowledge the QANTAS Founders Museum in Longreach — one of Queensland's most iconic venues, and an extraordinary backdrop for a long lunch of this calibre. If you haven't been, put it on your list.
Five years in, and we're already looking forward to the next chapter. Here's to 2027, another long table in the outback, another extraordinary partnership with Opera Queensland, and another group of students getting their first real taste of what this industry can look and feel like.
And if you happen to be heading to Beef Week 2027 in Rockhampton next May — well, don't be surprised if you spot a few familiar faces there too. After all, that's where this whole adventure started. It only seems right to raise a glass where it all began. 🥂
Whether your event is in Brisbane or 1,300 kilometres away, our team has the experience, infrastructure and creative capability to deliver. We've catered corporate events, private functions and major cultural occasions across Queensland — and we love a challenge.
Get in touch with Wine & Dine'm to start the conversation about your next event.
