James St Food + Wine Trail 2025: Wrapped

On a day-to-day basis, food occupies a significant portion of most people’s minds. What will I eat for breakfast? Should I buy lunch or bring it from home? Do I have enough ingredients in the fridge to cook dinner?

But questions like these aren’t always something we get to experience alongside others. So, when food collectively takes over the minds (and stomachs) of more than 42,000 people all at once, it’s a feat worth paying attention to.

Read on to see how this became a reality at James St Food + Wine Trail (JSFWT) on Sunday 27 July.

JSFWT at a Glance
JSFWT can be summed up as a celebration of James St’s culinary community by way of dining, drinking, and dancing. But what does this actually look like you ask? In its biggest iteration yet, this year’s Trail saw 40 food and drink stalls from 26 of James St’s much loved and award-winning restaurants, bars and cafés take over 8,000 square meters of our pristine precinct for a one-of-a-kind gourmet market. When it came to the dancing part of the day, live bands, percussionists and DJs took to the stage to soundtrack your fancy feasts and footwork.

The More, The Merrier
Our foodie family expanded again this year with Japanese-inspired Hideki Izakaya and the perpetually cool Penelope joining the fold. The former looked East serving the likes of miso glazed eggplant, crispy chicken karaage and ramen noodle salad alongside Japanese rice lager and sake, while the latter took a nostalgia-fuelled trip back in time to dish up steak frites, fish finger sandwiches, mulled wine and espresso martinis.

Out with the Old, In with the New
They may be well-seasoned at this point but plenty of James St’s mainstay venues continue to whip up fresh new dishes each JSFWT. For 2025, ēmmē debuted their take on the shawarma, offering both woodfired chicken and charcoal halloumi options while Sushi Room and SK Steak & Oyster both added new additions to their line-up of fan favourites in the form of wagyu A5 aburi nigiri and chargrilled prime rib with Caesar salad respectively. The sweet tooths were also in luck as Gelato Messina unveiled deep-fried and blow-torched ice cream creations and Jocelyn’s Provisions served signature 100’s + 1000’s lamingtons alongside their newest brainchild the JP Mallow Wheel.

Sonic Seasonings
With 6 different stages, pods and booths, manned by a total of 26 different artists, peppered throughout the event, it wasn’t hard to find some musical musings to suit your tastes on Sunday. Gudjingburra artist, Birren, brought his ocean-inspired rhythms and rootsy sounds to the Live Stage, while Afro and tribal house DJ, Danyon, got Doggett Lane bumping and bouncing with the help of Lu Latin on percussion. Plus, a JSFWT-exclusive live tam-tam performance by percussionist and composer Vanessa Tomlinson for Art on James served as the proverbial dinner bell, sending mesmerising soundscapes throughout the street to signal that feasting times are upon us.

There’s only so many words we can use to try and encapsulate this extra special culinary celebration, so we’ll let this year’s James St Food + Wine Trail highlights video below do the rest of the talking for us. Click play and turn back the clock to Sunday 27 July.

If you’re already wanting seconds JSFWT will be back for another helping in 2026 so sign up to the James St newsletter for all the juicy updates.