Architect Antony Martin Makes Homes in Melbourne
After working in New York City for a number of years, New Zealand-born Antony Martin decided to move to Australia and set up a firm of his own. Since its founding,
Tag Archives: Melbourne
Eddie Muliaumaseali’i Finds His Voice in Melbourne
Melbourne’s CBD is home to seasoned opera singer Auckland-born, Samoan Eddie Muliaumaseali’i, whose new musical comedy Jack of Two Trades received critical acclaim last month. Muliaumaseali’i has been singing in operas, musicals and plays and…
Chef Hayden McMillan Opens Etta on Lygon Street
Etta in Melbourne’s Brunswick East has just opened. The 80-seat bistro’s kitchen is overseen by New Zealand-born chef Hayden McMillan, formerly of The Roving Marrow, and along with Hannah Green (pictured right), he runs…
Graeme Simsion and Wife Anne Buist Literary Double Act
Auckland-born author Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist are Australia’s hottest literary couple, according to the Age, spurring on each other to keep the words – and surprises – coming. Buist is showing signs of nerves…
George Johnson’s Captivating Canvasses Exhibited
Nelson-born George Johnson is a giant of Australian “geometric abstraction” and his work, along with that of local heavyweights Jon Plapp and Trevor Vickers, was recently exhibited at Melbourne’s Nancy Sever Gallery. In a review…
Hayden Tee One of Melbourne’s Hottest Musical Stars
New Zealander Hayden Tee is one of Melbourne’s East End Theatre district’s hottest stars, playing Javert in Les Misérables, which then tours Australia over the next 20 months. Tee, who is based in New York,…
Australia’s Top Restaurant Run by New Zealander Ben Shewry
Melbourne’s Attica, run by New Zealander Ben Shewry, has been named Australia’s top restaurant at this year’s annual Gourmet Traveller awards. Attica is one of Melbourne’s premium fine dining restaurants, offering carefully crafted meals with…
Auckland Ties with Melbourne for World’s Friendliest City
It’s great to be a tourist down under, with travellers naming New Zealand and Australia among the best vacation destinations – the cities of Auckland and Melbourne are the friendliest in the world. Kiwis and…
Young Pilot Made Australian Aviation History
For a brief period in the 1900s, New Zealander JJ Hammond gave a small Australian suburb in Melbourne a significant place in the annals of aviation history. Hammond, a young man with a passion for…
Melbourne Singer Organises Her Artistic Impulses
“If you believe in the nurturing influence of parents upon their children, then Jess Cornelius is a worthy example,” says the Sydney Morning Herald’s Craig Mathieson. “The Melbourne-based singer-songwriter, who performs with Teeth…
Explosive Photographs Part of a Cinematic Language
Auckland-based photographer Geoffrey Short’s photographs – on show in Melbourne this month – of high-powered fossil fuel and gunpowder explosions tread a precarious path between terror and the transcendent, Dan Rule writes for the…
Night to Remember at Melbourne Jazz Club
New Zealand-born pianist and composer, Steve Barry, named Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year at last month’s Bell Awards, performed as a trio with Tom Botting on bass and Tim Firth on drums…
Mayor Gives Residents a Sense of What Auckland Could Be
Auckland sits at No 10 on Monocle magazine’s annual “Top 25 liveable cities” list, with Copenhagen at No 1, followed by Melbourne at No 2. “Auckland’s mayor Len Brown talks of making his city…
Nature-led and Outstandingly Good
According to the World’s 50 Best Restaurants website, Attica is New Zealand chef “Ben Shewry’s innovative but nature-led Melbourne masterpiece”. Shewry “often rises before dawn to forage on the shore near…
Shrewd Choice for Poland Cook It Raw
New Zealand chef Ben Shewry is one of a selection of the “world’s finest chefs” to recall their experience of a Cook it Raw event for a recent Observer article. Shewry, who owns…
Sharing Plates in Melbourne
New Zealand chefs continue to make their mark in Melbourne with recent arrivals including Daniel Wilson and Dante Ruaine at Huxtable and Alric Hansen with Small Victories. Christian McCabe…
Making Records Trumps Study
Kimbra started writing songs at the age of 10 as a “natural way to express myself as a kid” she tells Mel Evans of the Sunday Magazine. “It wasn’t until I started listening to…
Emphatic Win For Talented Teen
Auckland golf prodigy Lydia Ko has reinforced her ranking as the world’s best female amateur with an emphatic win in the Australian amateur championship at Woodlands in Melbourne. Ko, a gifted 14-year-old, beat Australian…
Courageous Man To The End
Nelson-born Jason Richards, V8 Supercar champion “to the last”, has died in Melbourne. He was 35. Peter Kogoy writes Richards’ obituary for The Australian: “His duel at the wheel of the Team BOC Commodore with…
Wellington-Fitzroy Pop-Up
When tickets went on sale for pop-up restaurant WLG in Fitzroy run by New Zealand’s best chefs, 500 seats were sold in 25 minutes. The temporary restaurant, named after Wellington’s airport code, opens for…
Steam Research Collaboration
New Zealand’s geothermal scientists will be collaborating with the world’s leading researchers after the country is admitted to the International Partnership for Geothermal Technology (IPGT) in Melbourne on 16 November. Established in 2008, the…
Hottest Jockey on the Planet
Nineteen-year-old Cambridge jockey James McDonald is the hottest teenage rider on the planet after a remarkable 12 months of smashing records in New Zealand. McDonald now has his sights on Melbourne’s feature cups double….
Jagger’s good choice
Fashion “It” girl Georgia May Jagger, daughter of Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, chose New Zealand designer Karen Walker for the racetrack at Melbourne’s Crown Oaks Day in November. “Georgia definitely made the right…
Holiday hero
Hamilton sergeant Murray Stapp has received a bravery award from the Governor of Victoria, Professor David de Kretser, after a July 28 arrest of an armed man who had just dragged a motorist from…
Young star shines
With director Taika Waititi’s film Boy opening throughout Australia on August 26, The Age talks to 11-year-old lead James Rolleston about his first ever acting gig. Waititi had already chosen a lead for Boy,…
All Blacks dominate
“Dan Carter inspires as freewheeling New Zealand crush Australia,” headlines the Guardian. “The All Blacks gained their third successive five-pointer in the tournament at a sandy Etihad Stadium in Melbourne beating the Wallabies 49-28…
New Rules for Teen
Fifteen-year-old Waikato-born Kurt Heatherly “has the opportunity to be the first AFL player recruited directly from New Zealand”, writes Jake Niall for The Age. If Heatherly wears the brown and gold at AFL level,…
NZ gothic on show
The Queensland Art Gallery’s Gallery of Modern Art is showcasing its substantial collection of contemporary New Zealand art — the largest outside of this country — with an exhibition called the
Power of Passion
Auckland born singer Gin Wigmore, 23, has been described by PBS Melbourne music manager Peter Merrett as a “waif-sized girl” with “indefinable power and passion combined”. Wigmore says if she were to compare her…
Not Humpty Dumpty
Should the New Zealand-bred champion horse Phar Lap be “put back together again” asks The Sydney Morning Herald. Victorian Racing Minister Rob Hulls is seeking to “re-unify” the skeleton (from Wellington) and the heart (now…
Small Screen Project
Waikato-born executive chef de cuisine, head of Gordon Ramsay’s North American operations and New Zealand’s first Michelin star winner Josh Emett, 36, will document his rise to culinary fame in a documentary called Chef…
Topps in Toronto
Much-loved New Zealand entertainers Lynda and Jools Topp (aka The Topp Twins) will join the likes of Canadian rocker Neil Young, Joan Baez and horror film king George A. Romero for free public performances…
Lucky Dagg at the Logies
Comedian and writer John Clarke, born in Palmerston North and famous for creating the “elegantly dressed” farmer Fred Dagg and his seven sons, all Trevors, will be inducted into the Australian Logies Hall of…
Wilson pitches the unpitchable
Christchurch comedian Cal Wilson is part of this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, performing on March 29 in Axed! The show is billed as “stories of the unpitchable, unprintable and unwatchable” and the…
Enlightened dining
NZ-owned restaurant Seamstress has won over critics and diners just weeks after its opening in Melbourne. The four-storey modern Cantonese eatery is co-owned by Dunedin-born Jason Chan, who runs the successful NZ-themed cafe…
From death row to Don Giovanni
Star NZ baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes has shown his versatility in an impressive series of Australian opera roles this year. In August, Tahu Rhodes played construction worker Stanley Kowalski in the Australian premiere of…
Home-grown Steeds Sweep Melbourne
NZ-bred horses made an extraordinary clean sweep of this year’s Spring Racing Carnival in Melbourne. Last year’s Victoria Derby champion, Efficient, was the surprise winner of the Melbourne Cup, streaking past European entries Purple Moon and Mahler…
Debuts, Divas and Dark Designs
Wellington writer Carolyn Enting provided an overview of Air New Zealand Fashion Week 2007 for the Melbourne Age. Highlights of the week included impressive debuts by Alex Kim and Alexandra Owen, a media stampede…
Funny man finds his feet
In just over a decade, Hawera-born comedian Alan Brough has established himself as one of Australia’s most popular talents. Since moving to Melbourne in 1995, Brough has appeared in films The Nugget and Bad…
Wellington: City on the Rise
Wellington has been named one of 10 world cities “on the rise” by the editors of Lonely Planet. The capital is described as “one of the world’s cold-yet-cultural cities … more beautiful than Seattle or Melbourne” in…
Return to Peak Form
Commonwealth Games medallist and Olympian, Greg Henderson, marked his return to form with a convincing win at the inaugural Commerce Bank Reading Cycling Classic in Philadelphia, USA. Riding for the Health Net-Maxxis team, Henderson beat Uzbekistan’s Sergey…
Global Roaming
Auckland-based company RoamAD has secured another major international contract, providing a high-speed wireless network to the Italian university city of Bologna. The free wi-fi network is the first to be deployed in the historic centre of a…
Wellington a Global Talent Magnet
A Cato Unbound essay by Richard Florida – The Future of the American Workforce in the Global Creative Economy – uses the Peter Jackson led Wellington film studios as an example of “a profound shift in…
Dinosaurs of the South Pacific
The first proof that dinosaurs lived on remote South Pacific Islands has been revealed by Dr Jeffrey Stilwell of Monash University, Melbourne. Stilwell, who trained at Otago University under NZ’s leading palaeontologist Ewan Fordyce, has discovered a…
Records Broken, Legends Born
New Zealand won 31 medals – 6 gold, 12 silver and 13 bronze – at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. 200m butterfly victor Moss Burmester became the first NZ man to win gold in the…
Roast with the most
Edge establishment Batch Espresso is cutting it in Melbourne’s razor-like café scene, with more stellar reviews in the city’s leading newspapers. Herald Sun: ” works the coffee machine and the room, making…
Next Stop Commonwealth Games
NZ won the New South Wales 100m Relay Championship at Sydney Olympic Park on November 19, breaking a NZ national record in the process. Led by Olympic representative Chris Donaldson, the winning team also included Dallas…
Golden Year for Silver Ferns
2005 has proved an incredible year for NZ netball, with the Silver Ferns winning all eight of their international tournaments. The latest came with a definitive Tri-Series victory over Jamaica and Barbados. “We certainly wanted to…
Milk and Money
Fonterra has announced plans to build an AU$15 million dairy innovation centre in Melbourne. “By investing significantly in innovation we are ensuring that we remain at the forefront of developing specialty ingredients and consumer products that will…
A House Less Crowded
March 26 saw the tragic death by suicide of drummer Paul Hester, Melbourne-born member of seminal NZ bands Split Enz and Crowded House. “We all knew him as an effervescent, vivacious fireball of talent,” said soul singer Renee…
Perky paradise
A Kiwi oasis in the midst of Melbourne is winning the hearts of critics and customers alike. Batch Espresso, owned and operated by ex-Wellingtonian Jason Chan, earned a rave write-up in Melbourne food bible Cheap…
You Say Chappell-Hadlee I Say Hadlee-Chappell
Sir Richard Hadlee had his audience in stitches at the launch of the inaugural Chappell-Hadlee Trophy series in Melbourne. Among other quips, he noted that the event was called the Hadlee-Chappell Trophy back home. The Black Caps…
Riding High
Sydney Morning Herald profiles 20-year-old Kiwi, Michael Walker; “the best jockey to emerge from across the Tasman since Jim Cassidy and Shane Dye.” Since his 1999 debut, Walker has ridden more than 100 winners in each of…
Travelers Flock to the Edge
NZ’s booming tourism industry shows no signs of slowing down, with a 20% increase in overseas visitors arriving in July than for the same period last year. According to the Tourism Research Council, tourism will grow by…
Increased Coverage This Season
“Dusseldorf, Reykjavik, Melbourne, Madrid and Hong Kong may as yet be household names only in the households taking part, but Mercedes-Benz Sydney Fashion Week, Air New Zealand Fashion Week and Sao Paulo Fashion Week…
Over but Not Quite Out
No.1 women’s squash player, Carol Owens, retired from her professional career on a high note by winning her second World Open title in December. Owens may still represent NZ at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne: “I don’t think…
