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He was alone. At 14-years-old he lost his first job in a hotel kitchen after being blamed for not buying and peeling enough potatoes for the weekend rush by an angry chef. Frightened and with too much pride to return home to an abusive father, he stood for hours contemplating whether to jump off a bridge into the river below and end his misery.
Fortunately for food-lovers across the globe, and, in particular, diners at the Four Seasons Bahrain Bay’s signature restaurants, Wolfgang Puck plucked up enough courage to walk back to the Post Hotel in the historic town of Villach at the southern border of Austria.
He hid, with the help of a friendly worker, in the cellar with the root vegetables, and wasn’t discovered for a couple of weeks until the booze-filled bully of a chef found him and called the hotel owner to the scene.
The boss took pity, and although feeling obliged to side with the senior member of staff’s decision, rather than sending the boy packing back to a father who had scoffed that he wouldn’t last a month after his mother had secured him the post, he gave him a job helping in the kitchen at a smaller sister property.
And, as the saying goes, persistent Puck never looked back … or down again for that matter. He spoke of his troubled childhood over an authentic Bahraini breakfast in the Manama Souq.
We sat in a corner of a room in the original café that opened after Hussein Haji expanded the family bakery in the 1950s. The alleyway has turned into one of the kingdom’s best known culinary landmarks for locals and tourists alike who flock there for traditional breakfasts, lunches and dinners.
There’s a setting for families, women and ‘bachelors’ at Haji’s dining out enterprise in Manama souq.
I recall meeting up with an expat British businessman during my first few months working in the kingdom who insisted on sharing a Bahraini breakfast in this very same spot as part of my ‘induction’ into life on the island.
Ten years on, this fond memory flashed back as I readied myself for a day in the company of celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck. Lindsay Cook, who made his fortune importing Sara Lee cakes, Brylcreem hair products and black shoe polish into the region, has since returned with his family to London. I hadn’t spoken to him for at least 18 months but I had a sudden urge to tell him where I was going in the morning. I relayed the story to Wolfgang.
“I know exactly what you mean,” he said as he tucked into a bowl of Bahraini-style scrambled eggs and tomatoes.
“Good food does that to you, it’s like remembering a particular person when you hear a song or look at a photograph of a place.”
The brand of Wolfgang Puck has been creating and making lasting impressions too under his steady hand and guidance.
You can only appreciate a true celebrity when you have breakfast with him in the souq and scores of fellow diners and passers-by stop to take selfies or ask a friend to capture a photo of them beside the chef.
And, he made time for everyone. He never stopped smiling or chatting along Haji Avenue – that’s not its official road name but it should be, although some old timers still refer to the café as ‘the BBK’ because the bank was once close by.
There was a touching moment when he joined an elderly Mr Haji on a bench outside. Although he calls in daily to ‘taste test’ the food, the café’s day-to-day operation is now in the hands of his son, Zuhair.
Within seconds of being invited, Wolfgang was in the kitchen, sampling the fare with the chefs before enjoying a piece (or pizza) of the action by catapulting flattened dough high on to the roof of the flaming open oven to bake.
Fate played a kind hand when Wolfgang moved to the second hotel in Austria. A woman was in charge of the kitchen, she had a kind heart, children of a similar age, looked after him and impressed on him to ‘just do the job’.
But just doing the job wasn’t enough for young Puck, especially when the town staged an international food fair and he watched a masterful French chef at work. At the age of 17 he set off on another adventure.
As a young chef he worked in some of France’s greatest restaurants, including Maxim’s in Paris, the Hotel de Paris in Monaco, and the Michelin 3-starred L’Oustau de Baumanière in Provence, learning the art of exquisite French sauce-making under the tutelage of celebrated Chef Raymond Thuilier.
Whenever Chef Raymond walked past Wolfgang would ask him his opinion about the sauce he was making. Every time he was told to add a touch of salt and pepper.
Then one day, Chef Raymond told Wolfgang to taste his sauce and offer an opinion. “Whenever he asked the other chefs for their opinion the replies were always the same – ‘magnifique’. I simply suggested he add a little salt and pepper too.”
The cheeky chappie had scored a direct hit, so much so, that if the main man was ever away on holiday, young Puck had to make sure he was around to make the sauces.
At the age of 24, Wolfgang took the advice of a friend and left Europe for the United States. His first job was at the restaurant La Tour in Indianapolis, where he worked from 1973 to 1975.
The little bit of English he had learned on a three-month trip to the UK as a child helped make the transition easier, a visit made possible by the international charity Save the Children because of his difficult family circumstances.
He began cooking at his mother’s side from an early age. She was a part-time pastry chef in the Austrian town of Sankt Veit an der Glan where he was born but her employment was only seasonal. She made incredible goulash at home and, when money was tight, instead of adding meat to the pot she created a vegetable stew.
The trip to the English army town of Colchester included a visit to an American base where he tasted his first hotdog covered in beans.
American cuisine in the 1970s was not much to write home about and an opportunity to impress was there to be taken.
He started offering cooking classes and some of his ‘students’ were impressed wealthy bankers always on the lookout for a shrewd investment.
He moved to Los Angeles in 1975 and very quickly garnered the attention of the Hollywood elite as chef and eventually part-owner of Ma Maison in West Hollywood.
His dynamic personality and culinary brilliance that bridged tradition and invention made Ma Maison a magnet for the rich and famous, with Wolfgang as the star attraction. He had an innate understanding of the potential for California cuisine, and was pivotal in its rise to national attention during the late 1970s.
It was a multi-cultural melting pot and a place abundant with fresh ingredients, an ideal location to put all his European culinary experiences to the test and create the original fusion dishes now so popular around the globe.
A touch of Gaelic gastronomic voila with a pinch of oriental extravagance and the taste explosion catapulted his career into orbit.
Wolfgang went on to create his flagship restaurant, Spago, and with signature dishes like pizza topped with smoked salmon and caviar, Michelin-starred Puck became a sensation, and Spago, Italian slang for spaghetti, a world-famous culinary destination.
Ironically, the chef has now been diagnosed with suffering from an intolerance to wheat. It was evident during our Bahraini breakfast that he only indulged in a few slices of pizza and the wonderful warm bread necessary to soak up the juices of the liver dish, as well as honey and cream.
Wolfgang says he cannot resist a small amount and stops before he starts sneezing.
He went on to open many award-winning restaurants, including Chinois, in Santa Monica, and Postrio, in San Francisco. Wolfgang remains the premier caterer in Southern California, best known as the star of the annual Governors Ball, where he’s served as official chef for the post-Academy Awards celebrity banquet for the past 14 years.
Some may have dined next to actor George Clooney at Spago, whilst others may have enjoyed his cuisine in a more modest setting. He launched his first line of frozen food in 1987 to meet his customers’ desire to enjoy his food at home. His all-natural frozen pizzas, appetizers, soups, stocks and broths are available at grocery stores throughout the US.
The famous chef has built an empire that encompasses three separate Wolfgang Puck entities: Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, Wolfgang Puck Catering and Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Inc.
Hospitality giant Four Seasons extended its long-standing relationship with him and the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group with the opening of two signature restaurants and a new bar & lounge: CUT by Wolfgang Puck, Re Asian Cuisine / Wolfgang Puck and Blue Moon Lounge / Wolfgang Puck at its Bahrain Bay property.
Since opening last year, all have become desired destinations for locals, expats and the many Saudi tourists who make a weekend trek across the causeway.
He returned for the first time last week and was quickly making an impression in the kitchens, even giving a ‘hands-on’ lesson to local journalists and bloggers on how to create the perfect vegetable spring roll and Chinois Chicken Salad which are now going to be my ‘party-pieces’ when the Szecowka family next entertains at home.
And Chef Wolfgang was back behind the grill proving he’s still a cut above the rest, hosting a BBQ on the lawn with his team in the evening.
I was exhausted and ready to drop but Wolfgang was on a roll, visiting every individual table, talking food and having his photograph taken with the guests.
This is a man touched with genius, in his element and happy to be alive. He is also extremely proud of his family, judging by the images he showed me on his phone. He has four sons, Cameron, 27, Byron, 21, Oliver, 10, and Alexander, nine. Wolfgang met his second wife, Ethiopian-born designer Gelila, in a restaurant.
This morning I ‘Googled’ the town of Villach. Right in front of the bridge is a bronze statue of a fool, staring out towards the centre of Villach with a pensive expression on its face. It was built in honour of its famous annual carnival.
With a lifetime of experience and at the age of 66, Wolfgang is no man’s fool, that’s for sure. He made the right choice not to jump off that bridge at the age of 14 and may his good fortune and happiness continue.
Thanks for the good company, fine food and fond memories.
