Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, who opened his first and most famous restaurant Spago in Hollywood in 1982, oversees Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, Wolfgang Puck Catering, and Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Inc. He owns around 20 restaurants around the world.
My hero for 2023 is my son, Byron Lazaroff-Puck. I love and admire Byron so much. He is my hero this year because I have watched him grow so much as a person, and become the person I admire most in the world. My pride for Byron and in his achievements means that he is my hero this year.
Like me, Byron loves food and always has. When he was a little boy he liked very basic food, but his food palette expanded when he was pretty young too—trying, and enjoying from when he was around 11, quite adventurous foods for a kid including things like sea urchins.
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Byron became a dishwasher at Spago as a kid, and learned all about patisserie and cake-making from Spago’s pastry chef, and pretty soon after that said he wanted to follow me into the restaurant business, which he has done.
As a teenager he spent time working in London under Nobu Matsuhisa, then in New York under Eric Ripert at Le Bernadin. In many ways, we had similar paths into the restaurant business. Like Byron, I worked in a restaurant when I was young, alongside the pastry chef at the hotel where my mother worked as a chef.
When he was around 18, Byron worked in a restaurant in New York then moved to Chicago to work at the three-star Michelin restaurant Alinea, and also worked at El Celler de Can Roca in Spain.
He attended Cornell’s hospitality school, where he learned more about the business side of running a restaurant. After he graduated from Cornell in 2017, Byron worked in my test kitchen—the ideal place to learn about our dishes, how we make those dishes, how we dream up new dishes, and how to execute that.
Byron Lazaroff-Puck, left, with his father Wolfgang Puck, photographed in December 2023.
Glee Digital MediaI hope, I think, that being introduced to restaurants and kitchens at such a young age, and having this amazing range of experiences, helped shape what Byron wanted to become. I think he feels very at home in restaurants, and in kitchens. He knows how to cook, and he also knows how the business works—it is the best of both worlds, and the best combination of experiences to have.
Byron is both an expert, and also innovative in all he does. I learn so much from him, and I think it’s important for me to be open to him as a younger person with fresh ways of doing things. In time, I would hope he takes over imagining and preparing the food for the Governors’ Ball, the night of the Oscars—which, this coming year, will be my 30th year doing it!
Byron has also brilliantly managed my restaurants—Spago Beverly Hills for a couple of years, and two more of my restaurants in Los Angeles, Merois and Ospero at the Pendry West Hollywood hotel. He has already introduced me to new ideas; for instance, at Spago for years we used to serve only wines and spirits; Byron introduced an amazing range of cocktails. He has great imagination, and is great with people—both the customers and the colleagues he works alongside.
I want to make clear that while Byron is my hero of the year, I love and admire all my children (my eldest son Cameron, and Byron’s two younger half-brothers, Oliver and Alexander)—and Byron is a wonderful and supportive brother to them too.
In the future, I want Byron to be happy, of course, and to do whatever brings him the most happiness. I would also, at the right moment, love for him to take over the company. To be clear—not now, not any time soon, I hope, but eventually! Part of my pride in Byron is imagining him being able to take over the company at the right moment. That is my dream for the continuation of my legacy. I want this to stay a family business, and I know Byron is the right person to lead it.
