Wolfgang Puck

There’s a decided Page Six-type buzz brewing around Washington’s new Newseum. Not that the serious-minded place has taken a turn for the tabloid, but rather that top chef Wolfgang Puck has opened his first fine-dining spot in D.C., The Source.

Like every luminous star, Puck got his big break in Hollywood. A powerful table of celebs discovered his dishes at L.A.’s Spago soon after opening in 1982, and Puck’s establishment became an overnight success (though unlike most of Tinseltown discoveries, his instant fame followed 16 years of understudy in Paris, Monaco, Provence and Indianapolis).

Puck heads a breed of Hollywood tastemaker, part slicer/dicer, part mover/shaker, and equally able to prepare a luscious canapé as to dazzle on camera. His résumé is enviable: He’s cozied up on the couch next to Leno, Conan, Letterman and Ellen; appeared as himself on both small screen (Frasier, Las Vegas, even American Idol) and big (The Weatherman); won two Emmys; and had his pop-culture status cemented when he was animated for an episode of The Simpsons.

In the culinary arena, the accolades boil over: He is the only cook never to have lost on Iron Chef (besting Masaharu Morimoto on a Battle of the Masters episode); he continues to beef up the likes of fellow Austrian, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, at his newly minted L.A. steakhouse, The Cut; and he’s been the official chef of the Academy Awards for 14 years.

Today, he also keeps busy heading an international conglomerate, which recently revealed its organic initiative WELL (Wolfgang’s Eat Love Live). To top it off, he is producing and starring in an animated food show for children, and graced the Forbes Celebrity 100 again in 2007. (He’s been on the list every year since 1999).

Puck continues to prove he’s at the top of the culinary heap, weathering continuous change in the Food Network cult of celebrity chefs. What’s his secret to such long-lived culinary acclaim? “This is my firm belief: You buy the best ingredients and then don’t ---- them up,” he says. “Especially the young chefs, they always want to add an extra ingredient, and an extra ingredient. And I say if you have 6 ingredients, it should be pretty good. You don’t need 22.”

This way, please, as we take a look at what else is behind that Puckish grin.

The Source in the new Newseum.

The Source is in the new Newseum. Tell us the truth: Are you a daily-newspaper kind of guy?
I read the newspaper every day. I read the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times in L.A. In Washington, I read the Washington Post. I grew up reading the newspaper. When I grew up in Austria, we didn’t have TV or telephone, but we got the newspaper every morning. I remember my father used to go out at 6 a.m. to pick up the newspaper. To this day, it’s still one of my favorite things—to get up, have a coffee and read the newspaper.

How has being in the mid-Atlantic influenced the menu at The Source?
One of the great things is that you can get really wonderful ingredients. That makes it a little easier than being in Minneapolis, for example.

Bigger D.C. inspiration: blue crabs or the blue bloods who eat them?
I don’t think we get inspired by “this is D.C.” or “this is not D.C.” What we do use is the ingredients and then do it our own way.

You are the first celebrity chef. Do you feel any pressure in this age of Food Network name-dropping?
I want to keep on going and moving ahead. I don’t want to look back. I want to be known for having many interesting restaurants.

You were on the Food Network staple Iron Chef America only once. Why?
They invited me many times [for the original Iron Chef series], and I never went because I said, “Nobody watches it, why should I go to Japan?” When the Food Network bought it, I said okay. … I told them, “If you are doing it with Emeril, and Bobby Flay and Mario Batali, and we do it between us, that would be okay,” but they didn’t want to. So I did it once, and it was enough.

What do you see as the next generation of cooking in America?
I think nowadays that there are so many young American chefs who are involved in cooking, it has become almost a fashionable profession. I really believe there are more exciting restaurants in America than anywhere else, and I think it will continue to go that way. Twenty-five years ago, there were very few kids who would come up to me, but now kids of customers come up to me and say, “I want to be a chef, what is the best school?” It is attracting a much, much smarter crowd than in the old time.

What do you think of the celebrity that follows being in a fashionable profession?
I think you have different levels of chefs. You have television cooks like Julia Child and Rachael Ray and Naked Chef. It is a different thing—they cook for TV and entertaining. It’s not like running a restaurant business and being a chef. They run a business too, because they make good money with it, but I believe running a restaurant is more complicated than that.

You spent your first 10 years cooking in Paris, Monaco and Provence. How did you end up in California?
I came to New York and I didn’t like it. You know in Monaco, we have the Grand Prix Monaco, and someone offered me a job in Indianapolis [home of the Indianapolis 500], and I said, “This is fantastic, I’m going.” So I took the Greyhound Bus from New York to Indianapolis … and I looked around and said, “Oh my God, this is Indianapolis?” It wasn’t like Monte Carlo at all. But I had to work because I had no more money. I got my green card there, and a year later they offered me a job in Los Angeles.

Was there a distinct flavor to California cuisine then?
There was no “California cooking” at that time. Goat cheese was the newest thing. Sun-dried tomatoes and tapenade were novelties. When I started Spago, I wanted to have a restaurant that was really simple, but that represented the people who are in L.A., the cultures that were there. We put a raw tuna on the menu. At that time there was no such thing as raw tuna at a traditional-style restaurant. You had to go to a sushi bar. We had duck sausage and Santa Barbara shrimp. When I wrote and designed the menu [for Spago], I said, “I’m going to write down California cuisine.” and that was the first time the people and the press really started talking about it.

Photo: Michael Buckner/Getty Images

Golden boy Wolfgang Puck has catered the Oscars for 14 years.

You’re no stranger to the screen. What makes you more nervous: acting, or coming up with an entire menu for a roomful of Oscar winners?
When you look from the outside, acting looks so easy. When I was on the set of The Muse, I was standing next to Sharon Stone and Andie McDowell, and I was so nervous, like life depended on it. It’s the funniest thing. I remember the first time I did the show Who’s the Boss? with Tony Danza, and I had no idea how they were taping it. I got so nervous, I walked in and forgot how to say good morning. I said it in German.

Spago opened 26 years ago. Were you looking to combine good food and celebrity clientele at that point?
I wanted to open a family restaurant. We had some pastas, some salads … I remember the chicken was under $10. When we opened the first night, the restaurant was full. Sure enough, after a few nights, I remember Billy Wilder came in, with Sidney Poitier and Jack Lemmon. All of a sudden we were in all the newspapers … Right away it became where a lot of movie stars went, the record people came. I think it got this buzz going. I think the timing for what it was was perfect.

What is your secret staying power?
I think for us, what was always important is to continue to grow, and get better and change. We try to do something interesting all the time, and to go with the times. We are not scared about closing a restaurant and opening a new one. I say, if I’m going to be in the same kitchen when I am 60 years old, I’m going to jump out the window. And now that I’m getting closer, thank God I changed.

You recently eschewed foie gras and veal in favor of your WELL initiative. What was the inspiration?
On the Jan. 16 [2007], it was Spago’s 25th birthday. About six months before, I started to think about what we were going to do to celebrate. I said, you know what, it is not really important what we did already. It would be more important what we are going to do the next 25 years. We are going to use humanely treated animals and all-natural and organic ingredients. We have to be a leader in the next 25 years in the restaurant business.

Do you have a childhood food memory?
I remember as a really young kid, we used to get hot chocolate with a little whipped cream on Sunday mornings. We got the milk from the farmer and my mother let it sit until the cream came to the top and she whipped it and put a little sugar and we had that with a kugelhopf for breakfast. That used to be my favorite thing. And then she used to make Wiener schnitzel for Sunday lunch, too, and mashed potatoes. It still is like soul food to me.

Any dream dinner guests?
I just watched a show about Picasso. To cook and paint with him, and drink wine with him. That would have been an amazing thing.

For most people, food is a great pleasure. Do you have any guilty pleasures?
At my restaurant The Cut, I play Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Some people complain to me and say, “Why do you play this music so loud?” and I say, “It’s not so loud, and it’s great music.”

Anyone you’ve been scared to cook for?
You know, not really, because I really know what I’m doing in the kitchen. I know we have the best ingredients. Everybody is a little bit nervous if a food critic is recognized. I don’t know the guy in Washington, so I can’t get nervous.

What’s in the future for Wolfgang Puck?
Our next really big goal is to change the way we feed our kids. I am developing an animated TV show for children that teaches them about nutrition, but in a fun way. Everything will be a character [including Puck], from the stove to the garbage can. We’ve slowed down [production] for the last few months because of the writer’s strike, but now we are gearing up. Hopefully we’ll have some finished episodes for the fall.