The Truffle Festival – Canberra Region
Launched in 2009 as the Capital Country Truffle Festival, this celebration of the region’s Black Winter Truffle has grown into one of Australia’s premier truffle events, built around a cluster of trufferies that have been cultivating the prized fungus in the hills around Canberra since the early 2000s.
Rather than a single-day event, the festival unfolds across the entire winter truffle season, with hundreds of individual experiences hosted at restaurants, cafes, wineries and farms throughout the Canberra region and neighbouring New South Wales towns.
Truffle Season Highlights:
- Truffle Hunts: Head out to a working trufferie to watch specially trained dogs sniff out truffles beneath the soil, often followed by a hunt-and-cook experience.
- Truffle Dining: Local restaurants and cafes across the region build special menus around the seasonal harvest, shaving fresh truffle over everything from pasta to breakfast.
- Cooking Classes: Chef-led workshops teach visitors how to cook with truffle at home, from simple pairings to more ambitious dishes.
- Farmers Markets: Regional markets sell fresh truffles directly alongside other local winter produce, wine and cheese.
Tips for Visitors & Trip Planning:
- Tickets: Because the festival is really a season-long program of dozens of separate events, each experience (hunt, dinner, class) is booked and ticketed individually rather than through one all-access pass.
- Plan Ahead: Popular truffle hunts and dinners at well-known trufferies book out weeks in advance once the season’s program is released, so decide on your must-do experiences early.
- Getting There: Canberra is the natural base, with most trufferies and towns involved a short drive into the surrounding NSW countryside — a hire car makes it far easier to hop between farms and restaurants.
- What to Wear: Truffle hunts happen on frosty winter mornings on working farmland, so warm layers, a waterproof jacket and sturdy, closed shoes are essential.
- Accommodation: Winter is a busy season for Canberra’s hospitality scene thanks to the festival, so booking well in advance is strongly recommended.
- Explore Canberra: Between truffle experiences, Canberra’s national museums, Lake Burley Griffin and cool-climate wineries make for an easy add-on — browse top Canberra tours and activities here.
The full season program, participating trufferies and individual event bookings are published on the festival’s own website. See details below, under “Event Related Information” section.
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