Anders Ousback (1951-2004) began working as a waiter in his school holidays in northern Sydney. In this capacity he met wine connoisseur Len Evans, who offered him a job in the cellars at Bulletin Place and mentored him for three years. After a period working as a wine merchant and teacher in London, he returned to Sydney where he worked at the Opera House, and to Melbourne, where he worked at Two Faces. In 1977 Leo Schofield took him to a lunch at Berowra Waters Inn that revolutionised his conception of what a restaurant experience could be. He worked there, and then at Toby Bilson’s Kinselas before beginning his extraordinary years as mastermind of Sydney’s restaurant scene, re-fashioning its best restaurants - Taylor’s, The Clock Hotel, Bennelong, the Wharf - and mounting unprecedented events at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Powerhouse. In 1995, meanwhile, he held his first exhibition of pottery at Rex Irwin’s gallery in Woollahra. He had staunch friends in Rowena Danziger, Lynnette Cunnington and Margaret Fulton, for example, and was remembered as a ‘generous soul’ by Damien Pignolet and a natural comedian by James Halliday and Gay Bilson. However, he took his own life at the age of 53 – ‘fastidiously’, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.
Purchased 2018
© Gary Ede
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