Going down across each Wednesday from April 7 to 28.
After a lifetime locked away in isolation training camp, Melbourne’s iconic Queen Victoria Market launches into celestial territory with their latest night market series, Spaced Out.
Taking off on Wednesday April 7, and running over four nights, Spaced Out will go above and beyond transforming into a ‘galactic wonderland’ featuring a smorgasbord of worldly cuisine, a cosmos of space-themed cocktails from the Buzz Lightyear-inspired Infinity & Beyond Bar, and an astronomical lineup of music and entertainment.
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Featuring a cosmic combination of Antagonist Spirits’ Hard Cut Gin with beers by Brick Lane Brewing, Infinity & Beyond Bar’s menu will boast innovations such as the peaches and cream-infused cocktail, Drops of Jupiter, gin and spiced rum cocktail, Space Rock Fizz, the Morningstar Belgian Dark Ale, the Supernova IPA, as well as cider creations from Coldstream Brewery, and produce from Mitchelton wines.
Partnered with a soundtrack from original out-of-this-world enigma David Bowie, hits like ‘Space Oddity’, ‘Starman’, ‘Ziggy Stardust’, ‘Hallo Spaceboy’, ‘Moonage Daydream’ and ‘Under Pressure’ will be performed by ukulele group, The Thin White Ukes.
Street entertainer Chris Morant will enhance the atmosphere with a roving lights and mirrors show with spatial movement and magic, while the Guru Dudu silent disco will also be returning to the market, bursting with laser-beam synths and a special space soundtrack.
When it comes to food, Spaced Out will see a collection of Melbourne’s best and most diverse food trucks touch down at Queen Victoria Market, with everything from smokey American BBQ to traditional Spanish paella, fresh cannoli and Jamaican giant jerk chicken being dished up for the series.
Brought to you by The Real Jerk Food Truck, Spaced Out‘s Caribbean offering is a must try. Roderick Grant’s the man behind this venture – he’ll be serving up some of the best jerk chicken Melbourne has to offer.
“Jerk chicken is a style of Jamaican BBQ,” Grant says. “Traditionally a massive range of spices are used but the main ingredients being Scotch Bonnet chillies and pimento. Jamaican food has a wide mix of cultures that have come together to create the cuisine from the African influence, the Spanish influence, the British influence, Indian and Chinese, with all of those cultures trading spices in Jamaica and having a big impact on our food overall – lots of flavour.
“We do Jamaican food predominantly and the Queen Victoria Market has really helped introduce Jamaican food to the wider foodie public. To this day it is still a bit of an education process as a lot of people haven’t had opportunity to try Jamaican food or know much about it but because of the Queen Vic, they’ve really given some real light to the cuisine and opened peoples palettes.”
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A proud Jamaican man, Grant moved to Australia at 18 years of age, jumping straight into the hospitality business with eating establishments as YEAH MAAN and Bax Food Co, along with catering arm Caribbean Fling.
Now with Boss Man Food Group and The Real Jerk Food Truck, Grant says the Queen Vic Market has been integral to their business success and sharing his culture, having been a part of the market’s festivities for around seven summer seasons.
“For us as a business with Real Jerk Food Truck and Boss Man Food Group, we’ve been involved with the Queen Vic Markets for quite some time, so we always get involved in events because we have a good product and are fairly niche so not many people do what we do, and they always put on a really good event that covers a broad spectrum of entertainment, great food and a really cracking environment,” Grant explains.
“I like working with the Queen Vic Market because they take a lot of pride in all of their events, they put great effort into making sure the environment is great for everyone with the selection of food, and of course it’s an iconic place.
“The place is usually filled with tourists during the summer season when we’re there and the people are great to work with, extremely well organised and you know exactly what is going to be happening when you get there which is pretty important from a pop-up food owners’ perspective because there is a lot of planning and moving parts that go into what we do.”
It was a no-brainer for Grant to jump aboard the Spaced Out celebrations – the event’s theme a perfect reflection of the current climate.
“I think Spaced Out and the whole theme ties in really well with the current environment where people expect to be spaced out in the literal sense … with social distancing as well as just a really fun theme with the space side,” he laughs. “It will be a fantastic event!”
Spaced Out runs each Wednesday from April 7 to 28, running from 5pm to 10pm at Queen Victoria Market. More info here.
