On the 25th anniversary of Wolfgang Puck Catering, legendary restaurateur and chef Wolfgang Puck looks back on founding the business and prepares for his biggest project yet.
Wolfgang Puck’s Champagne push pops PHOTO: BY AUDREY MA
Austria-born chef Wolfgang Puck first began catering events at Spago—the starry restaurant he opened on the Sunset Strip in 1982, and later moved to Beverly Hills in 1997. “We did catering even from the old Spago, like for Marvin Davis,” Puck recalls of the petroleum giant and 20th Century Fox owner. “He had bar mitzvahs and weddings of the kids. And then, we used to do [talent agent Irving Paul] ‘Swifty’ Lazar’s Oscar party at Spago. So that was our biggest thing.”
This will be Puck’s 29th year catering the Governors Ball following the Academy Awards. PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES
Then, in 1995, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences came knocking. “Swifty passed away, and some of the people from the Board of Governors said, ‘Wolfgang, why don’t you do the Oscars?’ And I said, ‘Oh, it might be an interesting thing.’”
Puck’s first year catering the Governors Ball wasn’t without its setbacks. “I always wanted it to be just like at the restaurant, and [everything] cooked at the last moment,” he says. “And I remember, the first year when we did the party for the Academy Awards, I told Matt [Bencivenga, executive chef], ‘Don’t cook the salmon yet; don’t cook the steaks yet—wait, we have time.’ And then all of a sudden, the electricity went out. I said, ‘Oh, my God, I still have to cook for 800 or 900 people! Puck put pans with butter on a little gas stove to cook steaks. Fortunately, 15 minutes later, the electricity returned. “But it was a long 15 minutes,” he jokes.
Chef and restaurateur Wolfgang Puck PORTRAIT BY MARCO BOLLINGER
When Puck catered the Governors Ball the next year, at Restaurant Associates’ Los Angeles Music Center, he met the vice president of operations, Carl Schuster. “He actually told me, ‘Why don’t we start a catering company separate from the restaurant?’” Puck recalls. “So that’s what we did.” Identifying a need for a chef-led catering business, the two launched Wolfgang Puck Catering (wolfgangpuckcatering.com) in May 1998. “In the beginning, we did everything out of Spago,” Puck says. “So it was a lot of traveling and very difficult because we didn’t have enough refrigeration for big parties—we always had to rent big trucks. … And then we got the place up on Sunset and on Hollywood Boulevard, so we got a bigger and bigger catering kitchen.”
Cacio e pepe cavatelli PHOTO COURTESY OF WOLFGANG PUCK CATERING
Puck never compromised the quality of his food—even if cooking for 800 people. “We were making what we did at the restaurant,” he says. “So if it was an appetizer salad, we did a Spago chopped salad with lobster. We often did a risotto or ravioli or tortellini or agnolotti as a middle course, like in the summer with corn. And then we gave people a choice of salmon or steak or rack of lamb. And then for dessert, we did a lot of the warm chocolate cake.” He never cut costs when it came to ingredients. “For us, our reputation is the most important thing,” he says. “If people hire us to do catering, and then we don’t do it well, they don’t want to come to the restaurant. So it was very important for us to use that as advertising.”
Puck’s beloved chicken potpie. PHOTO COURTESY OF WOLFGANG PUCK CATERING
As Puck’s restaurant empire grew—he now has over 20 fine dining establishments around the world in addition to Spago, including staples like Chinois on Main, CUT by Wolfgang Puck and Merois in Los Angeles—so did Wolfgang Puck Catering. His business quickly expanded across the country—into Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Seattle—and into areas including culture, sports and entertainment, conventions and corporate hospitality. “Whereas before we did a lot of weddings and house parties and birthdays, now we do a lot of corporate catering, from Sony Pictures Entertainment to Texas Medical Center,” Puck says.
Watermelon, hamachi, yuzu kosho PHOTO COURTESY OF WOLFGANG PUCK CATERING
On March 12, he’ll be catering the Governors Ball for the 29th time. “We do probably 40 to 50 different things, and it’s all on small plates,” he says of the post-Oscars soiree that was once a sit-down dinner. Guests can Clockwise from top: Chef and restaurateur Wolfgang Puck; cacio e pepe cavatelli; watermelon, hamachi, yuzu kosho; Puck’s beloved chicken potpie. expect all his signatures—such as the chicken potpie beloved by Albert II, Prince of Monaco; and the popular 24K gold-dusted chocolate Oscars.
In addition to expanding internationally—Spago locations are forthcoming in Riyadh, Marrakech and Kuala Lumpur—Puck is currently designing his “biggest project yet.” “Which is on the PCH, where Gladstones is,” says Puck, who once owned Malibu seafood restaurant Granita and expects this project to take three years. “We’re going to have Frank Gehry design a new building—it’s going to be an iconic building on the coast.” Till then, you can often find him at Merois at the Pendry West Hollywood, where he spends most of his time. “A lot of people are saying, ‘Wolfgang, why don’t you retire at your age?’ or ‘What are you still doing at 11 o’clock in the restaurant?’” he recalls. “I said, ‘I love what I do… I want to do that until the end.’”
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