It’s a popular dating rule that playing hard-to-get will make you more desirable. Put simply, people always want what they can’t have. Increasingly the same is true of our relationship with food. If it’s famous, crowded, exclusive, difficult to find or exorbitantly priced, we want it. And we want it now.

Here are five food trends that make you work for it.

The no-bookings policy at Melbourne’s Chin Chin sees some diners waiting for over two hours for a table.

It has star quality. When celebrity pastry chef Adriano Zumbo opened a shiny new store in Melbourne in October, a line formed outside from 5am. Spurred on by the thought of getting an exclusive first taste of Zumbo’s signature macarons, some visitors even travelled from interstate. One month on, the line continues to snake down the street on weekends, with Zumbo’s individual cakes selling out by early-afternoon most days. And don’t even think about trying to get your hands on the “Zonut”, Zumbo’s version of the infamous New York City Cronut. They are all gone by mid-morning.

Jafflechutes deliver toasted sandwiches via parachute.

It makes you wait. It pays to be prompt when trying to get a table at one of the country’s best restaurants. This year, Attica in Victoria placed number 21 in the San Pellegrino & Acqua Panna list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Ever since, the restaurant has had to adjust its reservation policy to accept bookings a whopping three months in advance. A Saturday night table at Quay in Sydney requires lots of forward thinking; weekends are booked out for the next six months.

Whilst some popular restaurants prefer to handle demand with elaborate booking policies, others simply operate on a first-come, first-served basis. Restaurants that employ a strict no-bookings policy can have outrageous wait times and endless queues, often generating more publicity than a PR rep ever could. Wait times can get up to over two hours at hotspots like Melbourne’s Chin Chin or Sydney’s Porteno. No-bookings Hobart haunt Garagistes, located in a converted garage, is so popular that owners Luke Burgess and Kirk Richardson were forced to open nearby offshoot bar Sidecar as “an interesting alternative for waiting diners,” according to Richardson.

It makes you chase it. The dreaded queue is only one of many challenges a keen food-lover can face in the pursuit of a good feed. The phenomenon of the food truck has made its way to Australian shores. Trucks like Brisbane’s Wandering Elephant encourage customers to follow their movements on Twitter, popping up at a new location daily. A couple of opportunists have even created an online compilation of national truck locations in order to simplify the process of finding your lunch, aptly named Where the Truck At?

Brisbane’s Wandering Elephant encourages customers to track the truck on Twitter.

The in-demand sibling of Hobart’s Garagistes, Sidecar.

An even crazier play on the thrill of the chase is self-described “float-down eatery” Jafflechutes, a company that quite literally delivers toasted sandwiches via parachute (see video below). Customers order and pay for their ‘wich on PayPal, meet at a designated time somewhere in the Melbourne CBD and prepare to catch their freshly made toastie. Ridiculous, maybe, but there’s no doubt the thrill of receiving your lunch from the sky makes a staple sanger more desirable.

It’s secretive. Sydney’s cool-kids club Secret Foodies sells tickets to its dinner parties in advance. The catch? Diners have no idea where they will end up eating, discovering the bizarre and outlandish locations via text message the morning of the event. Meanwhile, Fat Bob’s Bar and Grill in Moorabbin, Victoria, pulls diners by challenging them with its unexpected location. Tucked in a one-way street surrounded by industrial outlets, the neon-lit burger den isn’t something you’re likely to stumble upon. “We haven’t done one scrap of advertising,” says co-owner Deborah admits. “It’s all been word-of-mouth. Once people find us they regard it as their own special little place.”

Does the obscure location make Fat Bob’s burgers taste better?

It’s a gold-digger. Exorbitant food prices tend to increase hype and give diners a reason to think they’re getting something really special. Penfolds Magill Estate restaurant, located just out of Adelaide, takes the cake for the most expensive meal in Australia. An eight-course food and wine match will set you back $435, due mostly to the caliber of the wine selection, which is plucked straight from the vines outside the restaurant windows.

High prices can drive people to complete desperation, as evidenced by Northern Territory mango farmers’ recent decision to install security cameras and employ guards to protect their crops. In October a poor crop and inflated fruit prices prompted a spurt of mango theft, with opportunistic foodies preferring to leap fences rather than fork out $5 a mango.

There is no doubt that good food will continue to challenge and elude us until we lose interest. If you’re prepared to queue for hours, wait six months, go on a wild goose chase or pay top dollar, you may have the meal of your life.

Just don’t expect a call the next morning.

VIDEO: On the ground at Jafflechutes.