Wolfgang Puck Wants You To Take Your Steak To The Next Level. Here's How - Exclusive Interview

As a chef to the stars and multifaceted restauranteur, Wolfgang Puck is known for a lot of things. In his day, he's redefined California cuisine and helped to put cities like Las Vegas on the map as culinary centers of culture. One thing Puck isn't widely known for, however, is barbecue. So, it might come as a surprise that when his restaurant, Spago in Beverly Hills, opens for service on Sunday, November 10, the kitchen will be slinging America's most inimitable cuisine for one magnificent brunch. While chef Puck is more than capable of cooking a noteworthy BBQ feast all by his lonesome, he has some help with this Dream For Future Africa Foundation benefit brunch: chef and barbecue savant Adam Perry Lang. 

Perry Lang has long played a major role in developing the luxurious side of barbecue over the years, which makes his union with Puck something extra delicious to look forward to. Their collaborative brunch menu boasts massive, slow-smoked short ribs, "million-layered" biscuits, and an array of elevated fixings, to boot. In the lead-up to the event, Tasting Table had the opportunity to sit down with Puck for a primer on what guests can expect from the brunch, as well as some thoughts on how the chef feels about Vegas, holiday cooking, and what you should be sipping on this season.

What has it been like collaborating with Chef Adam Perry Lang, and how is the event going?

I've known Adam Perry Lang for many years. I remember when he had ["Jimmy Kimmel Live!"] and we had our catering company. [We] used to go and see Adam in the parking lot and ... and I said, "Oh my God, this is the best barbecue." Then, years later, we started doing a barbecue at the Bel-Air Hotel, so we had Adam with us, we had Nancy Silverton, and Francis Mallmann. Now, this year, we are going to start up the barbecue event again, but we are doing it as brunch ... Adam is doing such a great job with his barbecue. I went down to Venice a month ago and tasted it, and I said, "You know what? This is really the best barbecue anywhere."

Spago, when we were closed during the pandemic, our most successful dish for takeout was our fried chicken. We had the crispy fried Jidori chicken with Calabrian chili aioli, and salt and black pepper gravy, with macaroni and cheese with white truffles. That was so popular. But the people are going to get all different kinds of appetizers; we're going to make our smoked salmon, and sturgeon fish mousse with caviar. That's going to be on the table. Adam is making his colossal beef short ribs, which are smoked on oak and cherry wood, and he has a delicious salt finish, this savory salt mixture on top, and then also some amazing pork ribs.

[For] dessert, Della, our pastry chef at Spago, is the queen of the pies. We're going to have a coconut cream pie, a pink lady apple pie, and a bourbon pecan pie. We have blackberries on roasted quince cobbler, a chocolate chess pie, an old-fashioned banana pudding, and coconut cream pie. Plus, all the wines and champagnes ... That's going to be really a royal barbecue.

What makes the fried chicken so special?

I think it's the size of the Jidori chicken, because you have to fry it with the bones ... We marinate the chicken before in buttermilk and some spices, overnight, drench it in seasoned flour, and then fry it. It's got a browning recipe, and we serve it with a Calabrian chili aioli and some sage and black pepper gravy and also some black truffle honey ... Certainly, I think we don't do it in a restaurant, so it's going to be a special treat.

With the smoked fish mousse, can share any tips for recreating this dish at home, or common mistakes that people should avoid when they're smoking fish?

We use our smoked salmon; we smoke it ourself, but you can also hard smoke it, like sturgeon. You can get that at a good fish store, or you just buy it, and then we puree it, add some whipped crème fraîche to it, some lemon juice, lemon peel, and then let it settle overnight. Cover it with some salmon caviar and some black caviar. And I think you have it with breadsticks or whatever; it's perfect with a glass of champagne to start your brunch. It's a great little appetizer.

I think the main thing is to buy the best products. You start with that, then you're okay ... You get the acidity and the richness of the crème fraîche, and taste the seasoning. Be sure that the fish is not too salty, but you always can add a little bit of chili, or you can add some fresh ground white peppers.

On the menu at Caramá Vegas, there's a porcini-crusted ribeye. Why does this mushroom work so well?

I think if you dry the porcini really well and then you put it on your meat, you get this rich earthy flavor from the mushrooms ... You get a better flavor when you dry the mushrooms or buy dried mushrooms and then put them in a blender and crush them. Put them on your steak, and then the moisture of the steak will soften the mushrooms, and you're going to get a delicious flavor.

If you want to use fresh ones, there's a famous French dish called Coquilles St-Jacques in preparation. What you do is you cook the steak and make a mushroom puree. You chop your mushrooms — button mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms — chop them really fine, and cook them with some shallots, a little touch of garlic, and then cook them until the water comes out ... Add a little cream to it, season it with salt and pepper, and then you cook your steak. Put this puree on top, and then put it back in the oven underneath the boiler for a few minutes.

At CUT NYC, you've chosen to serve both an eye of ribeye and a full ribeye on this menu. What does an eye of ribeye bring to the table? And do you have different methods in tenderizing and marinating these, one versus the other?

When you have the ribeye, you have the eye, and then part of it has this cover, which is really a delicious part. But in between the cover and the ribeye, the center, you have a lot of fat, a big part of fat. Unless you take that out, people are going to say, "Wow, it's too fatty, I cannot eat it." We take it out; we take the rib cap off.

The rib cap is actually one of my favorite cuts, too, because it's not really a muscle, but it has a lot of flavor because it has a lot of blood in it, a lot of iron. I think you can cook it really fast and easy. The eye of that cut is, on one side, a little smaller, a little narrower, but you got just the meat without the fat. I like meat with fat inside when it's marbled, but not if you have it outside and next to your steak or with your steak ... With this way of preparation, we can do it so that people get the best of both worlds.

What's your favorite if you were to sit down for a steak dinner? You prefer your steak at medium-rare, but do you have a particular cut, sides, and cocktails if you were going to be sitting down for your own steak meal?

I eat actually small portions of meat; that's why I like meat for a table to share. A porterhouse steak, for example, which is cooked on the bone, is always better. It has more flavor that way. I like it. And then, if you slice it, you get one or two slices. For me, I eat maybe 4 ounces or 5 ounces of beef is enough because the beef we have in a restaurant is very rich, because it's prime, it's dry-aged, or it comes from Snake River Farm, or right now we have a great farm down from Australia called Stone Axe.

Retro steak preparations seem to be poised for a comeback, like Steak Oscar, Steak Diane. Are there any of these old-school ways of cooking steak that you feel could really be due for the same glow up or an exciting reintroduction?

Obviously, if you have great meat, all you need is a little salt and pepper on it, and it will be tasty and delicious, but you also can make a little more out of it ... if you don't have stock at home, add a little hoisin or a little barbecue sauce, finish with a little butter, salt, and you have a delicious steak sauce that's easy. What I like is where I cook the steak in a pan and then add a little butter and then cook shallots. At the end, add a little beef marrow to it and put that over the steak. We do it in London a lot. We also make beef Wellington; that has become very well-known again. We do it for a Sunday brunch in London ... Serve it with the Madeira truffle sauce.

Now it's fall; you can do a lot of braised meats from different countries, different flavors. From my country, where I grew up in Austria, we have beef goulash, and we use the short ribs for that because that's really tender and rich. We cook it with a lot of onions. You brown your onions and add in paprika, tomato paste, marjoram, some garlic, and some caraway seed, all chopped really finely. A little touch of balsamic vinegar, a little touch of sugar. Braise it like that, and you have this Hungarian-style dish. The traditional short ribs ... put an apple relish on top with a little spice in it, and a little fresh grated horseradish on it, and you have a red wine sauce. 

With the holiday seasons approaching, it's a great time for large cuts of beef and events where you're going to feed a lot of people. What are your must-do steps for something like a rib roast or a whole strip loin to elevate these cuts and make them something that wows at the dinner table?

Now, one important thing is for people who don't cook a lot, get a meat thermometer. That way you know when your roast is cooked perfectly, because if you have a prime rib, or if you have a New York strip loin, or a tenderloin, whatever it is, or pork roast, you want to cook it just right, the way you like it.

If it's a rib roast or a prime rib, I like to add a lot of black pepper to it, also a lot of finely chopped rosemary, so that way you get really this Italian-type flavor ... Another important part is when you have roasted meat is to let it rest after. You don't want to take it out of the oven and say, "Okay, the roast is ready, it's at 130 degrees, let's eat." You should let it sit at least for 20 minutes, in a warm place, obviously, before you cut into it ... If you cook a big turkey, let it sit before you cut into it. That's really, to me, one of the most important things. I like, with the rib roast, a little chimichurri, where you have some fresh herbs, some olive oil, a little touch of red wine vinegar, maybe some finely chopped peppers, red peppers or green peppers, and mix it all together with some olive oil. It's tasty, simple, but also fresh.

How has the transition gone from Lupo to Caramá?

It's always a little difficult because Lupo was so well established in Las Vegas that at the beginning, we had customers come by and they said, "Where is Lupo?" ... And I said, "No, now it's Caramá." They said, "No, no, no, we want Lupo." Now, people got used to it, and I think it's really a beautiful design; you feel like it's an Italian brasserie, or a big osteria or trattoria. We have this salumi stage in there now, so if you just want to have a little prosciutto and maybe some melon or some grilled caramelized pears with it, and maybe some culatello, you can have all these little things just sitting at the bar.

Obviously, we have our famous pizzas, too, and great pastas and great grilled food also, grilled fish or grilled meats. And obviously a veal Milanese, we have it, which is to me like a wiener schnitzel, but we serve it with a cherry tomato salad. A lot of different dishes and great gelato, great tiramisu. It's Caramá in honor of my mother, because "caramá" means "my mom," and my mother was a chef also. That's how I got into the business.

Can you share about anything new that is in the works for Vegas, if there is anything?

Well, we're going to do a restaurant out in Green Valley. The Four Seasons, we're going to develop a big project out there for a condominium complex, Four Seasons Residences, they call it. We're going to build a restaurant out there. That's still two years away, but time goes fast, so it's exciting. I don't know if I'm going to have maybe a more Italian flair or more French flair. We'll see.

And how do you feel Vegas has been evolving as a food city? Where do you see the food culture there going forward?

When we started in Las Vegas in 1992, there were no chefs yet. We were at The Forum at Caesars Palace, we opened Spago, and I remember it was after Thanksgiving, and that was really the slowest time in Las Vegas. We were very slow, and I said, "Oh, I made the biggest mistake to open in Las Vegas." Then came New Year's, and after New Year's, they had the big consumer electronics show and everything, then it got busy. 

When they opened the MGM and I talked with the president of the MGM and he said they were looking next to us for a Mexican restaurant, maybe a fish restaurant. I called my friend Mark Miller, who was into Southwestern food at that time, and Emeril [Lagasse], who is from New Orleans. We brought them so that we are the first real chefs. We started, really, the food scene in Las Vegas. Before us, there was no chef restaurant represented in Las Vegas. Today you say, "Who is not there?" You have so many chefs from all over the world ... You have good local restaurants, and now in the neighborhoods, you actually have good restaurants, too. Before, it was hard to find anything to eat except the buffets and the hotels, or a big expensive steakhouse, which was just made for the high rollers. 

How can home cooks rely on accoutrements to add simple or budget-friendly but impressive dishes to their holiday table? How can we expand the offerings and things that are not just meats and sides?

You can make some different kinds of relishes. That's really a good way to add flavor to your dishes. If you like lamb, you can make it with a little mango, a little mint, a little white wine vinegar, and some honey. Add some salt and pepper, some freshly chopped herbs, mix it all together so you have really something a little sweet, a little tangy, and a little mint with lamb would go really well. The same thing is with beef: If you have a beef roast, everybody loves horseradish cream, so you can make that very simple. You can even use prepared horseradish or get the fresh horseradish root, mix that together with some sour cream and crème fraîche, and serve that.

Or, like we talked earlier on ... make a fish mousse and put it in small, almost like a coffee cup, or a little soup bowl, and then just put it out there. That's really a good way to start. You can do a little bit of cheese also ... Cheese, for example, if you have it at home from yesterday or three days ago ... take it out a few hours before serving because cold cheese has no flavor. It needs to be room temperature.

Are there any other budget cuts or more affordable protein options that you think can add an aspect of luxury to somebody's holiday table?

I love pork ... A good pork rack is delicious. One of the preparations I love, I brown the whole roast, and then I saute some onions until they get brown, I add some apple juice to it, some fresh apple juice ... and then cook the pork roast with the apple juice in there and baste the pork roast a lot.

If you want to serve the pork roast with the onion, with the sauce, and everything, that's a lot of flavor ... Cut the apples diagonally in half, take out the seeds, and then roast them with a little butter, a little brown sugar, a little cinnamon. Once they're cooked, take them out, and if you get some cranberry relish, or you make it at home, or buy some from the store, and fill the cavity where the seeds used to be, put your cranberry relish in there and serve that with your pork roast. Maybe some sweet potato puree next to it; you feel like you're in heaven for the holidays.

Holidays can be a very busy time, especially when you're trying to work through several dishes at once. Do you have any tips for saving time in the kitchen while you're prepping multiple dishes?

You know what is important? For example, if you make a pie or dessert, whatever it is, do it that day ahead. If you want to make macaroni and cheese, a real one ... so you have to cook your macaronis, or cavatelli, or whatever pasta you like, put them in a gratin dish, put the cheese on top, maybe some breadcrumbs, and then, come the day, all you have to do is put it in the oven and bake it. That way, you don't have to do everything at the last moment ... That's an important part, to do things in advance, to get organized.

Do you have any favorite cocktails you like to sip on during the holiday season?

I just had a really delicious pumpkin cocktail at CUT in New York, which was really amazing. I was with my son Byron, and he said, "Wow, we should make that in every restaurant." It had a great color, but it had a great balance of a little sweetness, the alcohol, but also a little tangy; that was a great cocktail. Mostly what I drink is Negroni. That's my drink to go. I drink it often with mezcal instead of gin. That's an easy drink to do at home. It's one part, one part, one part, mix it together with some ice, strain it into a glass, and then add some ice cubes to it and an orange peel. You have a delicious cocktail. Just the look of it alone is like the holidays.

Very festive. I love the idea of doing a negroni with mezcal as well. Do you cook turkey this time of year? And do you have a preference for how you use up the leftovers?

We have a Spago in Maui, so we're going to have turkey there. I'm not cooking at home. Obviously, leftover turkeys are great for salad, for sandwiches, so there's a lot of things you can do with leftover turkey. People always think, "We have so much leftovers" but it's actually great to do it. You can chop it up and mix it maybe with some basil aioli, and you make a great sandwich with it. I think some people think they should make soup with the bones; I'm not a big fan of that, but if there's leftover meat, you can chop it up and put it in pasta.

Looking forward into the end of the year and the new year coming, have you started prep for the Governors Ball or the Oscars? Anything new and exciting we can look forward to?

This is a little bit too early; I didn't even think about it yet. I start to think about that end of January. We always do some new things and some things which are very popular. We always make our chicken pot pie; we always make the macaroni and cheese with truffles. There are certain things. We always make a good risotto; we always make some great vegan dishes, too. But I have not even thought one second what we're going to do ... 

Now, it's fall. Let's see what we get fresh. That's what I like really. I go to the market. We were just in New York last week ... when I took the train from Philadelphia to New York, even before going to CUT in New York at the Four Seasons downtown, I stopped at the Union Square farmers market, picked up some great pumpkins, picked up some amazing apples and pears. And that night at CUT, we made a delicious thin-crust apple tart with a little caramel sauce, some whipped crème fraîche, and also some fresh vanilla ice cream. So it was as good as it gets, yet it was so simple because the products were really good ... I think that's one of the things they have really tasty in New York is the apples.

Barbecue brunch at Spago happens November 10. You can purchase tickets for the Wolfgang Puck and Adam Perry Lang collab here.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.