Two Newtown neighbours, Black Star Pastry and N2 Extreme Gelato are collaborating to create a surprise sweet at the Spectrum Now festival next month. Black Star manager Eddie Stewart and N2 owner Min Chai have been meeting twice a week and exchanging countless emails in the invention process. They're not giving much away at the moment, though Stewart says it will mix artisanal pastry craftsmanship with mad science.

They will also serve their respective signature dishes at the Nosh Pit, the festival's outdoor feast in the Domain: Black Star's decadent strawberry and watermelon cake, and N2's Brokeback Moment, homemade honeycomb crushed through vanilla gelato topped with chocolate, honeycomb dust and a syringe of salted caramel sauce.

They are joined by some of Sydney's liveliest food acts cooking up something out of the ordinary. As well as serving their classic burgers, Mary's will put up daily specials such as the breakfast burger (pork and pepper sausage, bacon, egg, cheese, HP Sauce and maple syrup vinegar) and an out-there ice-cream sandwich with chocolate sauce, Jack Daniels and banana ice-cream on a toasted bun.

Playing around with multi-cultural street food, Sean Cheong from Poklol is serving soft tacos with Korean barbecued meat and Vietnamese salad, and Korean Chilli Cheese Fries – beer battered chips, bulgogi beef, melted cheese, kim chi and spicy mayo.

The best sandwich Luke Powell ever had was at Schwartz's deli in Montreal, which has served the same smoked meat on rye since 1928. Powell, whose LP's Quality Meats in Chippendale has been open less than a year, will create his version of this classic sandwich, using corned wagyu beef coated in peppercorns and coriander seeds and smoked for 12 to 15 hours.

He is looking forward to cooking and eating outside during the festival. "You can get a bit down and dirty, it's not so formal," he says. "You can lie down on the grass and make a bit of a mess."

www.spectrumnow.com.au