Wolfgang Puck

Wolfgang Puck is an Austrian-American chef, restaurateur, and businessman whose five-decade career has produced one of the foundational bodies of work in late-20th and early-21st-century American celebrity-chef restaurant industry — particularly his 1982 founding of Spago restaurant in West Hollywood, California, which has been continuously cited as one of the foundational documents of California cuisine. He was born Wolfgang Johannes Topfschnig on July 8, 1949, in Sankt Veit an der Glan, Carinthia, Austria, into an Austrian working-class family. His mother Maria Puck (whose surname he later adopted following his Austrian stepfather Josef Puck's marriage to her) was a hotel pastry chef, and his biological father was an Austrian coal miner.

His Austrian apprenticeship at age 14 in 1963 — at the Hotel Post in Villach, Austria — launched his early-career path. His subsequent French cuisine education across multiple French restaurants — particularly Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo, Maxim's in Paris, and Restaurant l'Oustau de Baumanière in Les Baux-de-Provence — produced his foundational French-cuisine training across 1965–1973.

His 1973 emigration to the United States — at age 24 — and his subsequent 1973–1975 work as the executive chef at La Tour, an Indianapolis French restaurant, preceded his 1975 relocation to Los Angeles. His 1975 hiring as the executive chef at Ma Maison restaurant in Los Angeles — where his Austrian-French-California-fusion-cuisine approach produced the early-1970s Hollywood-celebrity-clientele restaurant — launched his late-1970s Los Angeles celebrity-chef public profile.

His January 16, 1982 founding of Spago restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood — which became the foundational American "California cuisine" restaurant — produced his 1980s American celebrity-chef public profile. Spago has continuously hosted the post-Academy-Awards Governors Ball since 1995 — making it one of the foundational documents of late-20th and early-21st-century American Hollywood celebrity dining culture. His subsequent restaurant empire across the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s has produced over 100 Wolfgang Puck restaurants across 20 countries, the Wolfgang Puck Worldwide retail-grocery line, and multiple Wolfgang Puck cookbooks. He has been with American costume designer Gelila Assefa Puck since 2007, and the couple has two sons.

His name Wolfgang derives from the Old Germanic root meaning "path of the wolf" — popularized by 18th-century Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Wolfgang has been a rare but enduring American boys' name across German-tradition American naming.