Origins of Wolfgang Puck

One of the world’s best-known chefs, Wolfgang Puck, opened Californian restaurant Spago on the Sunset Strip in 1982, and now has dozens of high- profile restaurants in destinations as diverse as London, Shanghai and Bahrain. But it was the homely flavours of his native Austria that first made the celebrity restaurateur warm to cooking, and those influences are still reflected in his kitchens today

My mother

I fell in love with food because my mother was a chef. Our home in Austria would fill with the scent of cinnamon and vanilla as she made cookies. The spices are still in my head. Up until a year before she passed away, she’d send me a big tin – like I couldn’t make them myself! – of lebkuchen and jammy Linzer augen.

Japan

One of my favourite food memories is from my first visit to Japan in the Eighties. We went to a Kyoto restaurant called Kitcho for [multi-course] kaiseki. I’d never had anything like it. Every table had its own private room – the food was simple but the ingredients were amazing. They brought out a hot stone and we cooked shrimp on it; they smelled pure, like the sea.

Raymond Thuilier

The moment I knew I was a chef? When I was young, working at L’Oustau de Beaumanière, near Avignon. I made a sauce for a scallop dish using vermouth, shallot and white wine. The owner, Raymond Thuilier, tasted it, then looked at me and said, ‘Wow, this is as good as my sauce.’ I felt so proud. After that, when he would travel, he told me I had to make the sauces.

Steak

When I came to the US I wasn’t expecting to fall in love with food again – maybe a woman, but not food! But the steaks were amazing in comparison to what we had in Europe – the beef is grain-fed, so it’s richer. I had it for the first time in Indianapolis, working at La Tour. I snuck a New York strip from the menu and thought, ‘No wonder we’re selling so many.’

California

We’re so lucky with produce in California. One of my favourite ingredients is white sweetcorn, used in our agnolotti. We grate it to combine with mascarpone and Parmigiano Reggiano for the filling. I remember in the Eighties I took my mother to a farm near San Diego to try it. In Austria at the time we fed cows with corn so she was surprised – but she loved it. The farmer gave her some seeds which she planted at home to give to the neighbours.

Kaiserschmarrn

I didn’t do anything Austrian on my menus for a long time. But eight years ago at Spago we served kaiserschmarrn, a dessert I ate as a kid. It’s like a pancake torn into pieces – my mother used to put sugar on top. I made a lighter version, more like a soufflé, and served it with strawberry compote. It’s in our new restaurant in Budapest, but served with wine- poached plums. The plums in Hungary are amazing.

Soup

Soup is my comfort food. Especially goulash, with beef and potatoes. It reminds me of growing up. I had it again when I was in Budapest and it took me way back. I’ve made some for the freezer, so if I get home late and my wife has already eaten, it’s there.

Smoked salmon pizza

Our most famous dish is smoked salmon pizza. It’s so simple, I wonder why no one did it before. We started making it at Spago around 1983, out of necessity. Joan Collins is a good customer of ours and she ordered smoked salmon with brioche late one night – but we’d run out of brioche. So I said, ‘Let’s cook pizza instead.’ I tasted the salmon and it was perfect: warm, crispy and soft at the same time. Now it’s so popular we can’t take it off the menu.

Chilli

I love strong flavours like chilli and ginger. That’s why we have Asian influences in the restaurants. When I go to the Hotel Bel-Air, I tell the chef from Mexico City to give me something from where he grew up. He made me a fish dish with a cold green mole, so innovative. I ask my chefs from different countries, ‘What did your mother cook for you?’ I ask them to make it for me, then I tell them to make it again, in a contemporary way. The result is modern comfort food.