A documentary on Disney+ goes back to chef Wolfgang Puck’s beginnings
Film traces the chef’s origins from abused Austrian child to restaurateur to the stars
He has about 100 restaurants, frozen foods in seemingly every grocery store in America and an international reputation as chef to the stars.
But before ruling his vast culinary empire, Wolfgang Puck was the illegitimate son of a pastry chef, growing up in small-town Austria under the thumb of a relentlessly cruel stepfather.
“His voice really got into my head,” says Puck, who will turn 72 Thursday. “I remember being like 8, 9 years old and he would come home drunk and say, ‘You go in the forest and pick your stick.’ I felt like something in my inside was shrinking. And I said, ‘You know, I want to get out of hell.’ ”
That’s the strength of character that drives the biography “Wolfgang,” a new documentary streaming indefinitely on Disney+. Director-producer David Gelb’s film takes viewers back to a time when restaurant owners were king and there were few celebrity chefs, chronicling Puck as one of the first. It also shows he didn’t get there by himself.
Fired from his first kitchen job as a teenager, he walks all night and stands for an hour at a bridge looking down in the water before deciding not to jump. Over time, as he faces greater challenges, the voice in his head returns and he still has doubts. But Raymond Thuilier, founder of Michelin two-star restaurant L’Oustau de Baumanière in Provence, recognizes Puck’s talent.
He’s encouraged, eventually makes his way to California and finds there’s nothing he can’t do without his new family, friends and helpers at his side. They star in this film: his wife, designer Gelila Assefa; one of his exes and a longtime business partner, Barbara Lazaroff; superstar food journalist Ruth Reichl; legendary talent agent Michael Ovitz; and renowned chefs Nancy Silverton and Evan Funke.
Puck is honest, admitting he regrets not spending enough time with his first set of children. One followed in Puck’s footsteps and is now a chef, but he said he had to eat at Spago several times a week just to get in some semblance of a “family dinner.” “I started working at Spago as a 13-year-old peeling potatoes,” Byron Lazaroff-Puck says in the film. “Seeing him there as the leader was just amazing for me to watch as a kid.”
With his fun-loving and larger-than-life personality, Puck is still entertaining. So, we had to ask what it was like for him to appear in a film where he’s just as big a star as the glitterati he still serves in his restaurants — during the go-go days of Spago in West Hollywood, his staff had to read the trades just to know where to seat the industry types.
Q
Who do you wish was still around to see this film?
A
My mom, for sure, and maybe Raymond Thuilier.
Q
While you were watching your life in this film, it brought back some tough times, but good ones too. What were the sweetest memories?
A
The memory of Baumanière. That really changed my life. Thuilier was the first one who appreciated me; he was the one who thought I had some talent. When I look back he was the first one who played an important part in my life. And even when I was in Austria, I remember having Sunday lunch and my stepfather was there, my mother baked these amazing kugelhopf — it’s like a raisin and nut bread for Sunday morning — and the smell of it cooking. Now I look back and I don’t know how she did it. She had a wood-burning stove and there was no temperature gauge and she always had to guess and it always came out perfect.
Q
I remember going to Spago and it was so exciting because Eddie Murphy was outside, Tony Curtis was in the dining room, and there was a beautiful cake on display. You came by and put your finger on the icing and tasted it. And I thought, “Chef is having just as much fun as we are!” Is that a secret to your success?
A
I think passion for good things comes through in life. I love cooking and I love to taste food. I love the whole thing. So I think for me it was always fun. It was never a chore because if you’re passionate about something you have fun doing it.
Q
Your story is great. Would you like to see it made into a movie?
A
(Laughs.) You think it’s necessary? I don’t know. If someone could make it exciting. They made one about Julia [Child]. It did well.
Q
Who would you like to star?
A
I love Jack Nicholson but I think he’s too old now.
Q
Watching the film, I was impressed that all your life you’ve been surrounded by amazing women. What have you learned from them?
A
I always loved women and I always loved to work with women; for me it’s really a great experience. You know what I really like about women? Generally they’re not jealous of somebody else’s success and they do a great job whether it’s in the kitchen or in management. In our catering company — it’s a big company and I’m very happy we finally have a woman running it. And they’re more loyal. … I think I have more success with women in business. In marriage sometimes it ends badly. I didn’t talk to Barbara for 12 years, but David did a great job interviewing her and I’m married now to Gelila and we do a lot of projects together and we live together and we have two kids together.
Q
Your son Byron is a chef. You said there’s nothing better than seeing your kids successful. Do you want to brag a little?
A
I think he’s very talented and very passionate about food and I really like that he chose it himself. He only made an application to one school, which was the hotel school at Cornell. He went there and did a great job. I went to his graduation and I was very proud, and I had dinner with one of his professors who I really respect
and love.
Q
As for yourself, some of the things you started became essential, like the display kitchen. Do you ever feel sorry for the next guy who has to live up to it? I mean, he’s out there onstage. Maybe he’s not ready. He feels naked and afraid. Do you ever feel bad that you set the bar so high?
A
I don’t feel bad. No one forces a chef to be out there. They can put a wall around the kitchen; I just thought it would be fun for the customer. But also it made chefs more visible; it showed that chefs were important in a restaurant. Before that restaurants were run by managers, by owners, and if you watch the movie “Chef,” it’s a typical example Jon Favreau showed: the owner telling the chef, you have to do this and do that. Today it’s the opposite: Chefs tell the owner, “I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do that.” More importantly, chefs have become owners of restaurants.
Q
How do you want to be remembered and what dish do you want to be your signature?
A
I don’t want my tombstone to be in the shape of a pizza, that’s for sure. If I want to be remembered, it’s my family first. If the kids would say he was a great father, that would be a great thing, and maybe Gelila would say he was a good husband. That would be enough for me, and then like they say, “He also ran a few good restaurants.”