Wolfgang Puck’s Generational Tasting Tour Is a Window Into His Past, Present and Future

“The thing that makes me proudest is longevity,” Wolfgang Puck told the crowd at the Generational Tasting Tour dinner on April 30 at Cut in Las Vegas.

The legendary chef was at the Venetian casino-resort to cook alongside his son, Byron Lazaroff-Puck, and showcase the importance of both tradition and innovation. Wolfgang has seen so many competing restaurants come and go since he opened Chinois in Los Angeles more than 40 years ago, and he reminded guests of his legacy on Thursday as he served his beloved Chinois oysters with curry and salmon roe, before bringing out other greatest hits from his diverse repertoire. Kärntner käsnudel, a caviar-topped cheese-filled pasta, paid tribute to his Austrian heritage and his mother’s cooking. Chinois angry lobster demonstrated how Puck was at the forefront of proper fusion cuisine.

Byron, meanwhile, showcased the skills he honed at globally acclaimed culinary destinations like Baumanière, Alinea and Le Bernardin as he put together innovative dishes with local ingredients. He evoked the desert with Nevada beets and nopales in a beautifully composed dish that also displayed the sugar-blowing skills he learned at El Celler de Can Roca. Guests at the dinner included Michelin-starred chef Phillip Frankland Lee, who was in town to play in a high-stakes heads-up poker tournament. Lee marveled at the pastrami foie gras that Byron served alongside Liberty Farms duck breast with sour cherry and bourbon.

As guests enjoyed Wolfgang’s tableside-plated apricot strudel and Byron’s black forest cherry dessert, there were audible gasps in the back of the dining room. A guest had proposed to his date, and she said yes as Wolfgang stood nearby and saw another memory being made in one of his restaurants.

The Pucks will be making all kinds of memories as they embark on a worldwide journey for their Generational Tasting Tour. Byron told Observer he’s excited that sponsorship support from Doordash (which has made a big push into reservations after purchasing SevenRooms for $1.2 billion last year) allows him to buy the best seasonal ingredients in different cities. 

Earlier on Thursday, the Pucks talked at length with Observer about the Generational Tasting Tour and how they constantly balance tradition and innovation. Wolfgang, who is 76, still gets five newspapers from around the world on Saturdays. And the menu for the Generational Tasting Tour that guests received was a 16-page booklet inspired by a newspaper. But there was a QR code you could scan to give you a trippy augmented reality of the cover art on your phone. 

Byron is using A.I. chatbot Claude daily to help optimize business at his family’s restaurants, and Wolfgang would be fine with chefs exploring A.I. to develop recipes.

“If something is delicious and I would love to eat it again and again, I don’t really care how someone put the recipe together,” Wolfgang told Observer. “A.I. can give you all these ideas, but you still have to cook it correctly. At the end of the day, it’s the execution.”

The Generational Tasting Tour might imply that Wolfgang is willing to pass the torch, but he has no plans to retire soon. He could imagine himself being in the kitchen for another 50 years.

“That would make me 126,” he said. “I would be OK with that. I signed a long lease on my life.”

He’s taken up painting recently, but doesn’t know what he would do with all his time if he retired. So he plans to stick around and remind his son and employees what Wolfgang Puck food was, is and should be.

“I think that something that my father has kept with him his entire life is that we don’t want to overcomplicate our food,” Byron said. “We want it to look beautiful. But most important, it has to be delicious. It’s all about highlighting the ingredients in the best manner possible. ‘Buy great ingredients, and don’t fuck them up’ is the constant adage of Wolfgang Puck.”

The ethos behind the food remains the same, but the Pucks are constantly looking at new technologies and platforms. They like working with DoorDash because it puts Spago on a digital marketplace that reaches customers they’ve never had before.

“It’s about building experiences,” Byron said. “People shop for experiences the same way they shop for clothes online.”

“I think apps and learning how to communicate with young people is a really important path for us in the restaurant business,” Wolfgang said. “If we want to continue to be successful, that’s the way to go.”

Technology, of course, now plays a big role in customer retention.

“I always tell the story of Bernard [Erpicum], our original maître d’ at Spago,” Byron said. “He knew every diner who walked into the dining room by name, knew the table they liked, knew their wine preferences and their food preferences. It was that anticipatory style of service that you look for in fine dining. And what SevenRooms in its CRM allows us to do is to train the entirety of our teams to be like Bernard.”

It also lets the Pucks keep tabs on what’s happening in Los Angeles as they travel the world. There are 14 stops on the Generational Tour, including Istanbul, Singapore, Bodrum, Shanghai, London and New York.

In Las Vegas, DoorDash (which has huge billboards on the Strip promoting some of its partner restaurants) is also working with The Venetian on Culinary Crossroads. This is a series of high-end food events, based around storytelling, featuring the resort’s star chefs. In addition to the Puck dinner and a previous event with Bouchon’s Thomas Keller, the Venetian has announced a May 31 live show and dinner with Bazaar Meat’s José Andrés. This evening will be inspired by the chef’s forthcoming Spain My Way cookbook. Other Culinary Crossroads events will be announced soon.

“We’re working with our partners at Cote and Wakuda to create experiences, and there’s more to come, as well,” Julian Griffiths, SVP of food and beverage at the Venetian, tells Observer. “We’re trying to create one-night, one-of-a-kind events. It’s an opportunity for the guests to really understand and see the creative process and the stories that go into the food. What makes it special for us is that intimacy.”

Like the Pucks, the Venetian wants to showcase both tradition and innovation. This is a resort where newcomers like Gjelina, Scarr’s Pizza and Howlin’ Ray’s share the spotlight with Puck, Keller and Emeril Lagasse. Three very distinct steakhouses (Cote, Bazaar Meat and Boa) opened at the casino last year.

“It’s a marriage of the legacy of who we are and the foundation we have and what our future looks like,” Griffiths said. “But all of these chefs are evolving. They’re not standing still.”

And Wolfgang Puck, who has recently been thinking a lot about how mixing colors in paintings is a lot like bringing ingredients together in a recipe, is a still-in-his-prime example of a Venetian chef who just won’t quit.

“I know a lot of older people have problems with change,” Wolfgang said. “I love change. You have to change when you’re on top. You can’t change when business slows down. Then it’s too late. Cooking is a constant evolution. I think it’s really important to continue improving, to do new things, to get people excited about new dishes.”