738: How Wolfgang Puck Became Wolfgang Puck

24:53I said, I want a pizza. They said, no, we're at a record store or something like that. Right. So, and then I said, I don't want to make Italian-style pizza. I said, there is enough cheap pizzas out there, you know, fast food pizzas where they have tomato sauce and cheese on it. So instead of pepperoni, I made a duck sausage. Like I bone the duck leg, used part of the meal, made it fast, and made it like a sausage meat in a way, and cooked it really slow and then sliced it really thin and made a duck sausage pizza with shiitake mushrooms, some grilled onions, and a little fontina and mozzarella cheese.

25:30The best pizza cheese is fontina. I think that's the best choice. But not by itself alone. I think fontina has a very good nutty flavor and rich flavor, But also the fat content, especially if it's a little bit older, it makes it really fatty then if you use it alone. But it has the most flavor. To complement something. Correct. So you have to make a mixture. Like my mixture was at the beginning when I started, I used a mozzarella, a little aged fontina, a fresh goat cheese from Laura Chanel from Apsenoma, which at that time was something totally new. You know, I made a goat cheese salad, a warm goat cheese salad.

26:07And that's the goat cheese producer Alice Waters was using at Chez Panisse, right? I think so. I don't even know. And so I met her once. I did a dinner up at the Jordan Winery. And she brought me the cheese. She said, Wolfgang, you should try my cheese because I know you worked in Provence. And she learned how to make cheese in Provence, too, because they have goats and sheeps and everything there. So she brought me her cheese. And I said, oh, my God, this is so good. So I used that for my pizza. And I remember one day we did a private party at Marvin Davis' house. and Barbara Davis was upstairs.

26:39She said, send me the Marciano pizza. We called it Marciano pizza because my friends from Guest Jeans used to come every day to eat. I said, I'm going to put their name on it, the Marciano pizza. They made sun-dried tomatoes, tomatoes, fresh basil cheese, and a little olive oil on the bottom, no tomato sauce. And she said, oh, my God. Oh, my God, there's goat cheese on it. What is this white cheese on top of this? It's terrible. I was put it higher from the second floor in the house. And at that time, goat cheese was new. But I made a goat cheese salad and I had the goat cheese on the pizza, fresh Parmesan on the pizza.

27:16So it was basically mozzarella, fontina, Parmesan, and goat cheese. These were my three cheeses. I used no tomato sauce. I used for certain dishes a little pesto underneath instead of olive oil on the dough. Like I made a Santa Barbara shrimp pizza. I just killed the shrimp very fast for 30 seconds in boiling water, took it off the shelf and put it on the pizza. So it's very, very almost raw. Yeah, so even when you put it back in the oven, so it just cooked it, but it wasn't totally cooked. So it was really delicious. And I remember Linda Evans coming three times a week having a glass of red wine and my duck sausage pizza.

27:57So people used to make Spargo such a huge success, way above what I ever dreamed of. And let's talk about the pizzas and the culinary side. The goat cheese, obviously, the first response was what I think a lot of people have. They're like, this doesn't taste like cheese. But then as it sinks in, it's like this is a unique product. It's like umami. It's age. It's a little bit of animal. Was it that drawing them in, these creative? No, I think we had the first restaurant with an open kitchen. There was no such thing as an open kitchen. My kitchen was right in the middle of the dining room. When you walked in to the left, you had the bar right in front of you was the kitchen.

28:40So they saw me. I used to wave to them and said hello. And I had my old customers from my maison come already. Like I remember one time, Billy Walder, the Austrian director, you know, who I became very friendly with. It came with Gregory Peck and Sidney Poitier and Sean Collins. So we had a table of eight. Good four-top. No, with their wives and everything. So we're like maybe 10 people and in the middle of the dining room. And then there was a writer from The Hollywood Reporter, George Christie, was on a table close by. And the next day he wrote this big article about Spargo. He says, you know, Spargo is the new place to go.

29:16The food is fantastic. The clientele, the guests, you see everybody, the who's who of Hollywood. and everything. So it started out like a fresh fire, you know, and everybody said, oh, you will see in six months you will be like the other restaurant. Well, 10 years later, it was still the same. Today, we are 44 years old this year, and it's still the same. Was there something about the location, something about the room, something about you that grew the celebrity clientele? Was it the agencies were nearby? No, nobody was nearby. I think, you know, And we had agents like CAA. Mike Ovitz used to come with his customers.

29:55He was like the biggest agent or becoming the biggest agency in CAA. He owns a sushi restaurant in L.A. You're right. Which I really love. I love that. I go there, actually. I went a few times. Good spot, yeah. Near Santa Monica, on Santa Monica Boulevard. Exactly. But he was the first one who put me on TV, too. So when I came out with my second cookbook, actually, it was a random house book. when I saw the sign here. I said, maybe they have my books here. And I gave it to his wife's birthday. He came to dinner with Michael Eisner and Jane and Judy Owitz and Mike Owitz. And they were at a table for four sitting next on the window there.

30:35And it was her birthday, Judy's birthday. So I gave her my new cookbook. I was all proud. I said, Judy, this is my new cookbook. Happy birthday, a little present. And Mike looked at that and says, how come I don't know about your cookbook? I said at that time, Mr. Ovitz, you're a big agent. Michael Eisner runs Disney and so forth. And how should you know about the little cookbook? And he says, yeah, I should know about it. Where you promote it? I said, well, I did AM Los Angeles. I did a morning show up in Seattle and one in Chicago maybe. And he said, no, you have to do national TV. I said, yes, my PR person from Random House tried to get me on Good Morning America, Today Show or whatever.

31:25And they didn't want me because they said, oh, we have Julia Charles already. We don't need Wolfgang. He said, what do you mean? They're crazy. And he said, let me call them tomorrow. So he called the vice president of ABC. He came out a week later to L.A. always had dinner with them at Spago, and he made him sign a contract that Wolfgang gonna be on Good Morning America once a month. He did it on a napkin that the guy signed it. That is amazing. That is the birth of Wolfgang the celebrity chef, and you've got some heavy clientele. So I was the first chef really on television. Yes, they had Julia Charles or Jacques Pepin or the Gallop-Pit-Bomé.

32:05Not chefs, though. I mean, not chefs. No, they were not chefs and restaurant owners or restaurant chefs. Yeah. So that was really the first one. And I still remember when I used to have lunch at Le Cirque when I finished my show, my Good Morning America. I used to walk across the park. They were on the west side here. And then a few times, Robert Morton, who was the producer of David Letterman, I think somebody didn't show up or didn't cancel on them. He said, Wolfgang, I just saw you on Good Morning America. You want to do our show tonight? I said, yes, for sure. I think Daniel was the chef at Le Cirque at that time.

32:44He gave me like half a chicken or whatever. And you walked it over to the Ed Sullivan Theater? Yeah, I walked it over. And I started doing the late night show there. I think so little by little. And then in 2000 or so, when I started to do a few things with the Food Network. But at that time, Emerald was already the Bigstown Food Network. But you were still Wolfgang Puck. And I think you and Dave had a lot of fun on those segments. You can check those out on YouTube. I still remember one time I brought a white truffle. And, you know, it has such a bunch of smell. And some people don't like it.

33:20I don't know who they are. But I made a chicken dish with white truffle. And I gave it to David Letterman to smell the white truffle. And he smelled it. And I said, it smells like sex. And he looked at me and said, where have you been? I was like, they passed it on the best of Leatherman. Did it make air? Yeah. It's such a great line. I need to find that on YouTube. Oh, my gosh. I mean, Wolfgang, in the course of five years, you appeared on, and this is in the 1980s and 1990s, early 90s. Yeah. You appeared on Family Feud, Who's the Boss, and Tales from the Crypt. Yeah. All three of those. Do you have a favorite memory of those TV shows?

34:06I still remember when I did the show with Tony Danza. Yeah. And I got so nervous and I forgot my line when I went out there. Do you remember the line? I was going to a fish market. Yeah. Playing yourself, I imagine. Playing myself, yeah. And I don't know what I was saying. And all of a sudden, I blanked out on English. And one time also, I did a movie thing from Albert Brooks called The Muse. Oh, yeah. I think that too was in the 90s maybe. early 90s and I was next to Sharon Stone and Andy McDowell and it was the same thing you know all of a sudden I was thinking about Sharon Stone and basic instinct and I forgot what I was saying listen you have I had two lines you know and I said oh my god you know now I planked out so that's why I stay in the kitchen I think so Maybe they hired you because they knew you'd lose your line and it was just the charm of you.

35:12What's it like working with Albert Brooks? Albert Brooks is really funny, but really nice. And he made me really feel comfortable. And, you know, I thought, oh, I fucked up and I forgot the lines. But he just said, OK, we're just going to redo it. Just remember. What about the Tales from the Crypt? Do you remember that shoot? Tales from the Crypt was so long ago. Yeah, I don't remember that world anymore. Yeah, I mean, it's a legendary show. But I started to do Good Morning America with David Hartman and John London. I remember David Hartman was like 6 '5", whatever. And he had these deep boys and the wolf going, what are you going to do?

35:47And I looked up, I got so nervous cooking with him because I made chocolate souffle on live TV. And I had to put it in the oven at the right time that after four minutes of television, I take it out and it's perfectly cooked. and everybody was nervous, especially the producer at that time. I said, Wolfgang, why are you doing that? I said, we can do it, we can do it. Wow, and it worked out? It worked out of it, yeah. Do you still do live? You still do live TV, right? Yeah, yeah, sure. I just did yesterday, Good Morning America. You were back in the old studio. Back in the old thing. I don't come as often to New York anymore because now we have restaurants all over from London to Budapest and Istanbul and Middle East and Singapore and China.

36:28Yeah, it's wild. And I love that you are spending some time with us in New York. I've had a couple native L.A. chefs and maybe writers on the show, and they've all said that they missed the original Spago on Sunset. There's something about that space. Because it was something totally new at the time, for sure. But it was something, it was campy a little bit. We didn't have a lot of money to build it. The kitchen was right in the middle. It was simple food which you could eat every day, but of the best quality. You know, like I used to get the vegetables from the Chino farm. When I made white corn risotto or whatever, a soup with it or whatever, it had the best flavor because it came from the Chino farm or the strawberries or whatever it was.

37:18So I think it was the best quality, simply prepared, and the restaurant was fun. Yeah, I think that was the mindset. Can we talk a little bit about working with Sherry Yard? Yeah, for sure. So I hired Sherry Yard. First, Nancy Silverton was our pastry chef, and Mark Beal was the chef at Spago, our late husband. May he rest in peace. And so when Nancy left, I don't know how we got to Sherry. She was working up, I think, at the Compton Place or somewhere in San Francisco. and so she came then to work at the old Spargo and then at the new Spargo and you know and she's an incredible chef yeah I know she has great taste what I liked about Sherry Yard she's a pastry chef who didn't make cakes or things like that but she knew that it has to taste delicious yeah it didn't have to be complicated it didn't have to be like some showpiece or whatever you know But she made pastry which really tasted good.

38:22And I even sent her to Austria so she gets a little taste of where I came from. It's the alumni of Spago. I mean, it goes on and on and on. You mentioned all of those restaurants that you run around the world. You've got all that going on. But, of course, every year, come March, come February, you've got the governor's ball. And Wolfgang Puck doing the menu is said time and again. And I want to talk to you. I have a lot of questions because I was given the menu yesterday. And it's really crazy how many dishes you serve. I mean, and the first thing that comes to mind, and it's a dumb joke, but like, do people really eat at the governor's ball?

39:02You know, everybody is hungry because when you go to the Academy Awards, the women or the men, they all have to do their hair. They have to do makeup. They have to be at the theater or leave their home at 3 or 4 o 'clock, depends where they live, you know, to get their own time at 5 o 'clock to get into the theater. And I was saying, so most of the people had maybe a cup of tea and a toast in the morning and they didn't eat. And by 10 o 'clock at night, everybody is hungry. And I said, you know, they were vegans maybe before they started the day, but when they came out of the theater, they saw the chicken pot pie with black truffles, you know, and they smelt it and said, okay, give me that.

39:43And I remember Barbra Streisand ate three of them. Obviously, we made smaller portions. So even the governor's ball has evolved. In the old time, it was a formal sit-down dinner, you know. Now it's a party. We have small buffets in the dining room like this year. We're going to have a thing with five Japanese chefs. So we're going to have a Japanese station. The izakaya setup looks amazing. We're going to make a station for baking duck. I have our chef come from Kat in London, Elliot. He is making fish and chips, and we're going to have some filet wellington, and then we have our chef from Spago in Budapest is coming.

40:27He makes something more on the Hungarian side. Plus, we do whatever we do already, you know. So there's a lot of choices. So now people can mingle. We have this food station really with hot food in the dining room, And we pass around a lot of small plates. So if you want a tortellini with wild mushrooms or you want a Hunan eggplant, like if you're a vegetarian or whatever, or a vegetable risotto. So we have so many different things. Or the In-N-Out style burger that you, you know, yeah. Yeah, we make up a thing, but we make our own mini burgers. Exactly. Yeah, instead of the mini. Now, like. And obviously we have a lot of beef.

41:09You know, people think they don't eat. But we have like the tomahawk from a Snake River farm. Yeah, you have carving station. Yeah, we have a Japanese beef, the Miyazaki beef, which I made really famous because before the Kobe beef was really, always Kobe was because it's the origin where they farm the cattle. And I tasted the Miyazaki beef, which is a southern island of Japan. and so now we have that and I remember when CNN and everybody reported that Wolfgang is using Mirzaki beef for the Oscars for the Governor's Ball and all of a sudden they became famous for their beef now and they always had great beef some of the best ones in the world so we use their beef now for the last 10 years and I actually last year I went to visit them because you know people have these stories about Wagyu beef you know they massage the cows they give them beer and whatever, you hear this crazy story.

42:09I said, I want to see what they actually do. And, you know, they feed them rice, the hay, you know, not the grains, obviously, and barley, but also the hay. And then they add some minerals and stuff like that too. But it's more about the genetics, you know, the genetics of the pool. There's no beer. There's no beer, no massages, nothing. They live mainly like other things, except they're very worried about sicknesses, you know, like when they had the mad cow disease and things like that. So they don't want that. So when we went to the stable where they had them, you know, you had to put an overall on, like if you went into a fancy lab and everything.

42:49When we went to see the bulls, they have like four bulls who they had to get the sperm from for all the cows in the whole county and on the whole island there. But you couldn't go and see the bull close up. You had to look at them from a window. Yeah, they're like the prize bowl. Okay, I have to ask you about Leo. Is Leo eating at the buffet? I think that Caprio is really a good eater, actually. Yeah, I like him a lot. And I actually had him at the restaurant a few times at Cut. He loves Cut and he loves our New York steak from Snake River Farm. And so does Tom Cruise also, you know. Yeah, yeah.

43:31So they like that, but they all eat really well. And we sent out and, you know, obviously, I think for me, when they come, like I remember they came after doing one bottle after another. Yeah. I called it, I told him, I'm going to do a movie called One Dish After Another. So I brought them dishes out. That's funny. That's a good joke to the moment. So they were wrapping their filming up and did a little event cut. Yeah, with Benicio Del Toro and Champagne. Have you seen the movie? Have you seen the movie? Yeah, it's amazing. I love the movie. And I think Sean Penn did an amazing job as a supporting actor, I think.

44:08So he really played that role. And I think DiCaprio did a great job. So all of them actually were very, very believable. I think it's a really good movie. And hopefully it wins because last year I remembered a movie, Anora, won. I didn't even hear about it. I brought them and I knew they won for best director, producer. They won all these awards. And I had them in the dining room. I said, okay, come with me in the kitchen so you can eat quietly. So they all came with me in the kitchen. Yeah, the director, Sean Baker, you had him in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they all came, and I didn't know them. So it was funny when they came in the kitchen with the Oscars.

44:46I had like 60 cooks doing dishes and everything. That's really good. And they all applauded and everything. And I said, okay, I'll take pictures, but I didn't know them. Like I remember when Joaquin Phoenix won. He's a vegan or vegetarian. Yeah, yeah. And he says, I don't know where to eat. I said, come with me in the kitchen. And so I refed him in the kitchen. And he said, you know, this is the best vegan food I ever had in my life. I said, I'm going to have to come to you all the time. This is, I mean, the genius of being part of the governor's ball is you're just introducing these important people to your food.

45:19Yeah. And you're feeding them. I mean, they're also like extremely drunk and nervous or probably nervous first and then drunk. I think nobody wants to make a fool out of themselves. I guess you're right. I don't think they drink a lot, but maybe late night. Madonna has a party late night. Have you been? Yeah, once only. Yeah, but I'm tired by then. You surf, you work, you surf. 1 ,500 people and just the pressure to do it right. So I don't want to go out at 3 in the morning to go to a party, hang out. I said enough hellos already to these people, and I don't really know if they actually want to see me at that time.

45:57They might want to see a good-looking guy or a good-looking girl instead of me hanging around them. I mean, listen, you're a legend. And I'm sure with food culture rising, I'm sure some of the younger actors are like, I want to meet Wolfgang Puck. I don't care about Sean Baker. I want to meet Wolfgang Puck. Like, going back the 32 years, is there like a year when you're like, this was the craziest one we did? I think the craziest one, the hardest one actually was when we did the first show, the first dinner at Hollywood and Highland, you know, at the Dolby Theater. So the weather was bad. They had a lot of electric heaters and everything.

46:38And then all of a sudden, and I cooked everything basically to order. We have a big kitchen. So we had at that time, we still served a sit-down formal dinner. And we had a duo of, I think, a roasted salmon and New York steak. So, and the New York steak, we seared them off and marked them and everything, but we put them all in the oven the last minute. So I said, okay, we don't have to cook them in advance. And all of a sudden, the electricity goes out. No more electricity. Kind of the worst thing to happen to a chef. No more gas, no more electricity. I said, shit, we still have to serve at least 600, 700 customers.

47:19And everything stopped. So I said, oh, my God. I panicked. And I said, okay, bring out the little burners, you know, which we use sometimes for parties. Yeah. And I said, okay, let's start slicing the New York steaks up and put them in a lot of butter and cook them somehow. Smart save. So you throw some butter in there and get the sterno going. Yeah, get the sterno going. Basically pan, roast them. Yeah. And then the problem was we had an engineer and everything there, too. but the security was so tight that they didn't let him come and look. So he was holed up. And then Carl Schuster, who was my partner at the time, I said, Carl, go find this guy, the engineer.

47:59We need the electricity. If not, we're going to stop. And about 15 minutes later, he came up into the kitchen, turned the thing on, the switch on again, and everything was fine. And in the dining room, you know, they had the safety lights on. Nobody actually knew what was happening. No one knew that you could have power. Yeah. That's incredible. But for me, it was 15 minutes, like I think the longest 15 minutes of my life. Crazy story. But I'm sure no one even knew. Yeah. So this year is going to be your 30, what is it, 32nd? 32nd, yeah. Wow. You're going to keep doing it? Yeah, we'll keep doing it.

48:31I think we are used to, they are used to us. I know what the people like. You know, I know even we make a lot of new things, but at the end of the day, you know, people love their chicken pot pie, their macaroni and cheese. They love a good pasta. And I love, like, the fish and chips became very popular, or the chinoa food. And from cut, obviously, we always have great meat. So then we make, obviously, all these vegan dishes and vegetarian dishes and pasta dishes. We haven't even talked about the pastries. You have a gelato station. You've got all the chocolates. You've got these, like, what is it, like, dipped chocolates I saw on the menu?

49:08Yeah, we have. Sprayed. Yeah, we make 3 ,000 chocolate Oscars, which we spray with gold. Yes, which we have right behind you. Yeah, we have one right behind me. And we have a station with Austrian desserts I love. And last year we started their apple strudel, which was amazing. We cook it to order. And this year we're going to do the same thing with the warm chocolate cake. We make madeleines and cook them there, right there, and then just brush them with a little fondant with lemon juice or with a little chocolate so it's fresh out of the oven and it smells so good. The pro move that I follow when I've been invited to an event like this is you just go to the desserts first.

49:48I personally just want to eat every dessert. Do you have people doing this? I have. You know, we had a customer. He's gone now for a long time already, Luther Wanderers. He used to come to the restaurant all the time. He was rather portly, too. And he always started with dessert and ordered to dessert. And I said, Luther, why do you start with the dessert? Eat something else before. He says, no, I love dessert so much that I'm always worried by the time dessert comes. I'm so full I cannot eat desserts anymore. So I start with dessert. I have a new appreciation for Luther Vandross. I already loved him.

50:23Yeah, he's a great singer, but he loved sweets. And I love sweets too. Oh, my gosh. I love that. I didn't ask, how do you get a ticket or invited to the Governor's Ball? The best thing is you make a great movie and then you get invited.

50:40Or you star in it, or you make the music for it, or you produce it, you figure out a way. They don't have a podcast on the Oscars yet. I know. We can't really quite get in there. And then the Golden Globes, but the Golden Globes food is, there's no Golden Globes ball. No. Golden Globes is like everybody just hanging out in the ballroom at the Beverly Hills. They're just drinking that champagne at the tables and eating. The food is notoriously bad at the Golden Globes. Well, it's, you know, it's hotel food. All these big hotels when they serve banquets, it's in the hot boxes and it sits there for hours.

51:13They turn them on and then they serve it. So it's different, you know. It's like eating in a fast food place. Yeah, but definitely not the governor's ball. No, we make the food and we get the best ingredients, like we said, like from the miresake beef to the Snake River Farm beef, you know. And then we get the fish, whatever it is. Like if I have on the menu black bars, but I can get it. Maybe I can get the amazing rock coat from the Santa Barbara Island, which when it's caught fresh, is as good as any fish, you know. So we do whatever is fresh that we use. That's amazing. This episode is brought to you by Rula.

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53:29You're running the greatest spectacle on earth with the biggest roster we've ever had. Over 400 superstars and legends from every era. Stack the tables, break the rules, burn it all down. And yeah, my very own showcase. Telling my story the way it should have been told. Because when the show never stops, anything is possible. Available March 13th. Pre-order now. Wolfgang, on This Is Taste, we discuss about their discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? Okay. I'm always ready. All right. I was born ready. You were born ready.

54:01The best fruit. The best fruit is any fruit which is ripened on the tree, on the bush, whatever it is. So for me, to have a Mara de Boa strawberry, I can't wait to get them. I still remember going to the pineapple fields on Maui. There are very few left. Cut a fresh ripe pineapple, which is already nice and yellow. The fragrance of it is so amazing. Or I still remember in Austria, the wild strawberries we went to pick in the forest. I mean, it's really— That is a memory. It's really a thing. Like when you go to a hotel, most of the time they put a fruit basket in your room. You cannot eat any of them.

54:48Maybe the banana. Maybe the banana. Banana will always work. The worst vegetable. I don't. The worst vegetables are rotten vegetables, you know. I think a lot of vegetables, when they sit around too long in the refrigerator, outside, wherever, you know, they are not good anymore. And I think also the vegetables who are grown on these factory farms have generally no flavor. Exactly. They have no flavor. And in 1975, you found Chino Farm. Yep. And it's been lights out. So if you get white corn or you get carrots or you get artichokes, whatever it is, they taste really, really good. You know, if people, the farmers have passion, they love what they do and they know how to cultivate the things.

55:35They know not to do everything every year the same thing. Now you have these monoculture farms where after a while the soil is depleted of all the minerals, what makes things taste delicious. It's such a good point you bring up. the best dessert? You know, I can have chocolate. It's probably my favorite. I can have caramel. I love it just as much. I love great fruit desserts, like a great apple strudel with a marzipan ice cream is one of my favorites. I love a lot of desserts. To me, when I go to Spargo, for example, in the kitchen, the first thing I do, I go to the dessert station, taste the ice creams.

56:19Like I still remember when Sherry Yard actually made a raspberry sorbet with chocolate chips in it. That's such a cool... And I said, you know, if you taste it and you let it melt in your mouth, you get first the flavors of the raspberries. And as the chocolate gets warm and start to melt in your mouth, you finish up with the chocolate taste. And I said, you know, this is like the most perfect sorbet if you eat it slowly. You know, you let it melt in your mouth. Don't swallow it and forget about it, you know. And that's with gelato too. You have to kind of let it, you know, melt a little bit in your palate.

56:55I love that. A big one for you. A restaurant you wish you could bring back from the dead. You know, it's very difficult to say what restaurant really, I think. When I look in New York, maybe Lutess. Oh. Because Lutess made such a big impression. I still remember a restaurant like Maxwell Plum, you know. And there's really iconic restaurants in the 70s maybe. And in a way, sad to see them go away. And that's what I say about our restaurants. Fargo is open 44 years. Cut is open over 20 years. Chinua, 43 years. Longevity. And I'm very excited because now my son Byron is working with me. And, you know, he worked in some of the best restaurants in Europe from Guy Savoie to the Roca Brothers to Steirach, to Bobanier, where I used to work 50 years ago.

57:55Byron, putting on some miles. Yeah. And he's going to take over your business? Yeah. That's great. He is very good. He went to Cornell, so he also got very good schooling. I left school when I was 14, so he has a better education than me. So I think I'm very excited that we can continue our family business. My brother runs our cafes at the airport. My wife works with me. Galila works with me on branding. So I think we are really a family who runs it. And to see your kid be so passionate about the same thing I'm passionate about, I think brings me so much joy. I love that. You can see it in your face.

58:35You're really proud. That's really nice to hear. Nice to hear it's a family business. A couple more. When you're craving fast food, which I know you do once in a while, where are you going? You know, I think it's very difficult. If I would choose, I have to choose one. Yeah. Would probably be In-N-Out Burger. Yeah. On the West Coast. So I tell you a good story. So one day when I met my wife, Galila. Yeah. And it was for Valentine's Day. I said, I have to take her out. I'm neglecting her and everything. I think that was maybe in 2001 or 2002. And we were going to Palm Springs, and Eric Ripert had a restaurant at La Quinta.

59:20Oh, cool. And I said, okay, let's go stay at the hotel there. And Eric Ripert was going to wait. I ordered flowers, a bottle of champagne on the table. And naturally, I was busy. The restaurant was busy in L.A., so I was leaving late. A lot of traffic in L.A. So I was leaving maybe at 6 o 'clock at night or something like that, and we got into traffic. And I never have eaten an In-N-Out burger. And then on the way, we got into an argument because there was an In-N-Out burger, and Angelila said, let's stop there. Let's get a burger. I'm so hungry. I can't wait anymore. And I was saying, for your dinner in this fancy restaurant.

1:00:00Eric's been cooking all day. And so we passed it, like, by 10 miles. We got into an argument. Finally, I got so upset. I said, okay, let's go back. We went back. And then it's a drive-through. And she ordered her burger and said, ask me what you want. I said, okay, I want my burger with Dijon mustard and I want a glass of red wine. They looked at me and said, what? So now I know my kids still love it. Yeah. My wife still love it. And we actually went to a memorial service for Wallis Annenberg. You know, she is an amazing lady. And it was just on Sunday. And her favorite thing were Pink's hot dog and an In-N-Out burger.

1:00:48So I said, okay, I'm going to have an In-N-Out burger. It was Sunday afternoon. I didn't eat lunch. I had some espresso in the morning. and I had the one wrapped in the lettuce leaf, you know, and iceberg lettuce leaves and everything. I said, you know, it is good, but when I like to eat, I like to sit down at a table, eat with a knife and fork, have a glass of wine. So to eat like a thing like that in, you know, they call it fast food. They cook it fast, they eat it even faster. It's not my style of eating. You've always been measured. But in and out of all the fast food, I think it's the best one.

1:01:24You made your point clear. I love that. Yeah. Last one, your favorite sandwich. Well, my favorite sandwich, I must say, was our lobster club sandwich. We made a lobster club sandwich when we opened in San Francisco in 89 or 90. Yeah. Probably the first lobster club in America. Yeah, probably the first lobster club with really good tomatoes from the farm, with some really good bacon. and the lobster lightly smoked in like a little beurre blanc like that, you know. So it was really rich tasting, but together on some really good country bread, it was like a perfect sandwich for me. So expensive, but really delicious.

1:02:12And to be copied over many, many times. You know, I had simple ones too. Like, for example, when I do a grilled cheese sandwich, if you take some really good bread and then put cheese in it, put black truffles in it wrap it in plastic wrap let it sit overnight in the refrigerator and then you put it on the griddle or in the oven or in the pan however you want to cook it and you get the flavor and the smell of the black truffles you said oh my god you know there are only three ingredients but it tastes amazing. That is such a sandwich I love both of those Wolfgang Puck thank you so much for joining This Is Taste.

1:02:52Thank you.

1:03:21Luis Zergan Pomeroy, logo designed by Ellie Skirzat and Ian Dingham. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.