Have you heard of Sanjeev Kapoor? In India, he’s Martha Stewart, Wolfgang Puck and Oprah Winfrey rolled into one. He has a cooking show that’s the longest running program of its kind in Asia, a line of appliances, a chain of restaurants, lucrative
encyclopedic list, and all of them pointed straight to Wolfgang Puck’s Beverly Hills flagship. Its cellar is 19,000 bottles strong, ready to serve power diners their cult Cabs, key Bordeaux vintages and, befitting Puck’s heritage, choice Austrian whites
. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times) All kinds of settings for wine drinking thrive in Los Angeles: the cool-kids wine bars; the bastions of wealth with cellars full of vintage Bordeaux to pair with rib-eyes; the escapist havens mimicking European cafes
Wolfgang Puck, whose portfolio of restaurants was small enough to control but profitable enough to permit him to inhabit the same social circles as his customers. The next decade belonged to guys like Ducasse, Robuchon and Vongerichten, three-star chefs
, but it has crunchy pistachios and soft fresh cheese at its core. At first, Kahn’s food here can seem almost abstract, rough-textured bowls whose carefully arranged contents can seem more Arcimboldo than Wolfgang Puck. A disk of raw chopped beef
tossed in with the steak tartare. I suspect that the suave potato mousseline, a side that joins Ludo Lefebvre’s purée and Wolfgang Puck’s aligot in the L.A. mashed-potato pantheon, is as carefully prepared as the pricey Dover sole meuniére it accompanies
abstracted tacos at Petty Cash and the informal cafes in the Philippines. Fine dining, as opposed to cooking that includes sea urchin in the guacamole, is a neglected art in Los Angeles at the moment. But Manzke and restaurateur Bill Chait apparently had
cooking: Asian chefs looking not just at other Asian cuisines but also at American chefs looking at Asian cuisines. The new American style of small-plates service may owe a lot to Japanese izakaya traditions, but it is not quite izakaya. Wolfgang Puck may
learned: Not listening to my wife. What would the last meal on Earth be? Double-Double Animal-Style. Who's your hero? Culinary or otherwise? Wolfgang Puck, Spago is where I did my externship, where it all started for me. What cuisine that you are
of become an epicenter of new restaurants of late. After a diner has tried your place, which other Camp restaurant would you recommend to him/her? Old Vine Cafe, biscuits and gravy are out of this world. What does Ecco bring to the scene? Fresh yet
Tradition by Pascal – Newport Beach o Watermarc – Laguna Beach o Wildfish Seafood Grille – Newport Beach o Wolfgang Puck Bistro – Costa Mesa o Zov's Bistro – Tustin o Zov's Cafe & Bar – Irvine o Zov's Cafe & Bar – Newport Coast
by the Sea – Dana Point o Marmalade Cafe – Tustin o Marrakesh – Costa Mesa o McCormick & Schmick's Grille – Anaheim o McCormick & Schmick's – Irvine o McCormick & Schmick's – Santa Ana o Mozambique – Laguna Beach o
pizza cooked in a wood oven by chef Daniele Uditi at Pizzana restauraunt. Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times The Wolfgang Puck effect on American pizza is well known, redefining it into a vehicle for whatever ingredients happen to be delicious and fresh in
blossoms, and what Menashe calls foie gras halvah, which is to say duck liver whipped with sesame and served with slabs of grilled buckwheat toast. The crisp, flaky malawach, a Yemenite flatbread that you see in most Israeli cafes, is stupendously good here
doughnut holes are Middle Eastern only in the hint of rosewater. And her best dessert — a puck of chocolate-enrobed licorice ice cream with Maldon salt, a dead ringer for the chocolate-covered Lakrids licorice candy from Denmark — may be Middle Eastern only