Stephen Downes

I haven’t reviewed restaurants professionally for almost a decade. But I’d like to comment a little on a new restaurant called lene, its first letter fashionably lower-case. Owner-chef Cameron Williams is 25 and has an impressive background in cooking. Apprenticed at 17 to Jacques Reymond, whose comprehensive and rigorous culinary skills I’ve admired and written about for decades, he went on to work in Michelin-starred restaurants in London and Copenhagen before returning to his home town Melbourne with a dream …

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So far, there’ve been only positive reviews of my debut novel The Hands of Pianists. (I wouldn’t dare to predict that negative ones won’t come!) The book has been out a little over a month, and four critiques have been especially satisfying. Peter Craven’s rave, which I’ve written about already, is stupendous. My book is ‘virtuosic in its technique and grand in its achievement’, he wrote in The Weekend Australian. It’s written with ‘absolute gravity, grace and a moody, constantly …

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A publisher who helped to launch the careers of several distinguished writers, Hilary McPhee believes my debut novel The Hands of Pianists is ‘perfectly poised between silences and sounds, music-making and conversation’. She said she ‘loved its utter lack of pretension’. I’m delighted with the high praise, of course. With business partner Diana Gribble, Hilary launched Helen Garner, among other fine writers, via their imprint McPhee Gribble. Hilary’s endorsement complements Peter Craven’s critique on Saturday in The Weekend Australian. Peter …

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