Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Winter 2012 - (Page 104)

and successful empire of restaurants. And the culmination of those moments is WP24 by Wolfgang Puck, a modern Chinese restaurant that combines every lesson Puck has learned in his nearly four-decade career as a restaurateur: It is convivial like the seminal Spago; it is Asian-inflected like Chinois; it uses artisanal meats and produce like his modern steakhouse CUT. And, as all of his restaurants are, it is in a neighborhood that is thriving. Right now, that neighborhood is downtown Los Angeles. On a clear day at WP24 you can see the ocean in one direction, the Hollywood Hills in another, and the towers of a downtown that is glittering with $5 billion in development. There’s the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, a Museum of Contemporary Art reinvigorated by über-curator Jeffrey Deitch, a growing gallery scene, mixologically inclined haunts that cater to the influx of loft dwellers, and a new football stadium in the works. At the bar at WP24, a dramatic space of curving wooden slats and banquettes, the floors are terraced to allow diners more of this view while they nibble on dim sum and sushi and sip highballs spiked with calamansi, the “it” citrus threatening to unseat yuzu. At night, with the nearby skyscrapers lit up and restaurant lights dimmed, you could be in any chic Asian 21st-century metropolis like Seoul or Shanghai. In the more formal dining room, servers bring out dramatic dishes like wok-fried Angry Lobster, salt-baked whole fish perfumed with Szechuan peppers, and rack of lamb glazed with Korean Gochujang (chili pepper) paste. Any given evening these dishes will be ordered by the likes of conventioneers, bachelorettes, L.A. Lakers season ticket holders like Jeffrey Katzenberg, and, is that … it looks like … yes, it’s Morgan Fairchild. Back in the kitchen, Puck is manning the stoves with authority, pushing aside a cart of violet Japanese eggplant to get where the real action is: a battery of woks blackened from heavy rotation. He cranks up the BTUs on a burner and gets to work on the signature Angry Lobster. He tosses in Szechuan chilies and garlic, instantly enveloping the station in smoke and perfuming the air. In go split lobsters, their shells taking KI TCHEN CONFIDENT IAL Clockwise from top left: Chef Puck with chef de cuisine Sara Johannes; Crisp Lettuce Cups with Sweet Shrimp; sea bass in a fragrant salt crust. on flavor and char before heading out to the dining room. Puck reviews Peking ducks lacquered a deep mahogany, air-dried skin crisped just so. They’re impressive — and they should be. Puck has been perfecting his duck technique for some time. “I’ve always been crazy about ducks. At Chinois I bought a smoker just to air-dry ducks. We had a five-course tasting menu with duck foie gras and duck fried rice,” he remembers. Today at WP24 the duck is presented tableside, swaddled in a midnight blue napkin, then served in the traditional manner: cut up into breast and thigh pieces, and served with scallions and plum sauce and bamboo baskets of freshly steamed bao. This isn’t the first time Puck has cooked downtown. Forty-odd years ago he worked at a long-gone French restaurant and rented an apartment here. “I paid $85 a month,” he remembers. “If I’d known what was going to happen here, I would’ve bought a parking lot.” On days off, the young chef would explore the Asian enclaves of Chinatown, Little Tokyo and Koreatown. “I fell in love with Asian food because it uses a lot of strong spices and condiments. I like a menu that has spikes of flavor. I like food with guts. That you eat and say, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’” If you compare the evolution of Puck’s career to the arc of a multicourse tasting menu, it is full of spikes and amazements. The amusebouche, the first bite that hints at what’s to come, would be Spago: Here, Puck not only jump-started the nation’s fascination with wood-fired pizza, but he dared to serve raw fish sauced with ponzu. This was in 104 w w w. r i t z c a r lt o n . c o m http://WWW.RITZCARLTON.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Winter 2012

Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Winter 2012
Contents
Contributors
Editor’s Letter
President’s Letter
Falling in Love With ... Hong Kong
Design
Auto
Technology
On the Boulevards
Shopping
Jewelry
Watches
Palm Beach
Wellness
Santiago

Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Winter 2012