On this episode of Taste Buds with Deb, host Debra Eckerling speaks with Byron Lazaroff Puck, president of the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group. This legacy chef, the second son of chef and restaurateur Wolfgang Puck and designer Barbara Lazaroff, grew up in a flurry of cooking, art and hospitality.
“There’s a Picasso quote that I love, which is, “Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist,’ and that always spoke to me,” Puck says. “To me that means honoring and respecting tradition, the rules, the things that people have worked so hard on to create in the past, and … then also being bold and creative and trying to innovate on top of that.”
Puck loved art as a kid and wanted to be a painter, but quickly realized that was not meant to be. When his father put him to work at age 12, washing dishes at Spago Beverly Hills, he was amazed, seeing the plates come together and go out on the line.
“I quickly realized, ‘If I'm clearly terrible at painting on canvas, maybe I can paint on plates;’” he shares.
Once that love of food and hospitality was ignited, Puck never looked back.
“It's not just about serving great food [and] beverages with detail oriented service, it's about crafting a memory for a person that they can always look back on, whether it’s a 25th or 30th or 50th birthday, an anniversary, a college graduation or a promotion at a job [or] just a regular Tuesday night,” he says. “Every single person that is gracious enough to adorn one of our dining rooms, we want to treat with the utmost respect and integrity.”
Byron Lazaroff Puck shares his cooking journey and food memories, creative cooking and plating tips, the value of hospitality, and thoughts on the future of food. He also talks about his grandmother’s latkes and his recipe for Passover short ribs, which you can find at JewishJournal.com/podcasts.
Follow @ByronPuck’s food adventures on Instagram and check out WolfgangPuck.com.
For more from Taste Buds, subscribe on iTunes and YouTube, and follow @TheDEBMethod on social media.
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