First Hong Kong's airport – so will celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck be heading into the city for his next restaurant?
Long-time chef to Hollywood stars, Wolfgang Puck has opened his first restaurant in Hong Kong, at the Hong Kong International Airport – his entrance into our city appropriately sits in the arrivals hall.
He has brought over his casual dining brand Wolfgang Puck Kitchen, which serves a Californian-inspired interpretation of global comfort fare using high-quality seasonal ingredients. The restaurant offers breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner, and even late-night supper. There is also a bar for travellers to kick back and enjoy a cocktail or two.
Wolfgang Puck is known for his flagship fine dining restaurant Spago in West Hollywood, which opened in 1982 and was a favourite haunt of the Hollywood elite. The restaurant is now located in Beverly Hills and is still very popular.
Puck has catered the Academy Awards, the Governors Ball and has had parts in television shows such as Frasier, Las Vegas and a cameo in The Weather Man. He has also appeared on Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters and his own series Wolfgang Puck's Cooking Class.
The Austrian American started training as a chef aged 14. He worked in some of French cuisine’s greatest restaurants, including Maxim’s in Paris, the Hotel de Paris Monte Carlo in Monaco, and the Michelin three-starred l'Oustau de Baumanière in Les Baux-de-Provence. At the age of 24, Puck left Europe for the United States.
He now has a wide variety of concepts globally in more than 50 locations. From airports and universities to hospitals, street-side restaurants and casinos, such as the steakhouse CUT by Wolfgang Puck at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.
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We caught up with the busy, 70-year-old chef recently.
Why did you decide to open in Hong Kong at this time?
To me, Hong Kong is one of the most exciting cities in the world and, since I love Chinese food, it has some of my favourite restaurants and I can’t wait to sample all the cuisine.
Is there any reason you chose to open at the airport?
We already have restaurants at different airports in the US but also overseas in Singapore, Sydney, Bogota [and elsewhere], so I believe it’s a great way to enter the Asian market and start with Hong Kong.
How did you decide on this particular concept for Hong Kong?
I thought: let’s give the people in Hong Kong a taste of what we do in the US.
Your restaurants range from casual to fine dining, which do you enjoy doing most?
I enjoy fine dining as well as casual, though I must say it’s easier for me to cook in an upscale restaurant because money is not an object. It’s a little more difficult to prepare great food at a reasonable price.
Hong Kong is a big fine dining city, do you intend to open a fine dining venue here in the future?
Hopefully in the near future we will open a restaurant like CUT or Spago.
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Do you cook at home, and if so, what is your go-to dish?
I don’t cook at home but my wife makes great pasta bolognese and lasagne which the children love. When I cook at home it’s generally for a party or a larger group.
What’s your favourite foodie city and which restaurants within that city do you like?
San Sebastian in Spain has some of my favourite restaurants: Martin Berasategui, Asador Etxebarri, Arzak and many of the tapas places in downtown.
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The casual Wolfgang Puck Kitchen is now open at Hong Kong International Airport – but when will the Hollywood chef known for catering at the Oscars bring Cut or Spago to the city? Soon, he hopes