Alison Roman: The Roman Empire

Overview

Melbourne is filled with must-try places for a bite, but there's still nothing like a home-cooked meal. Alison Roman understands this. The Brooklyn-based food writer and chef may live in New York and have access to its thriving dining scene, but she's a big fan of eating in — and she has viral recipes such as #TheCookies, #ThePasta, #TheStew and #TheDip to prove it.

Roman also has two cookbooks currently in bookshops, and possibly on your own shelves: Dining In: Highly Cookable Recipes and Nothing Fancy: Unfussy Food for Having People Over. Come April in Australia, Sweet Enough: Desserts for People Who Don't Do Dessert will join them. To launch the latter, and to make her first trip ever Down Under, Roman is hitting our shores to get chatting about home cooking, those internet-famous dishes and why she adores her own kitchen.

Michael Graydon and Nikole Herriott, courtesy of Hardie Grant Books.

The viral recipe queen and New York Times-bestselling scribe will head to Melbourne Town Hall on Friday, May 5 as part of this year's Melbourne Writers Festival. In the Victorian Capital, she'll be talking with Benjamin Law, and expect her food newsletter A Newsletter and YouTube series Home Movies to get a mention.

She'll also discuss her career and her journey to the dessert-focused Sweet Enough, plus everything from having her own CNN cooking show to releasing her first baking book.