Pink Peppercorn

Nature's celebrity comeback

This is a preview of my favorite chapter from my new book, PLEASURE PRINCIPLES. Available for pre-order now.

On January 12, 1982, Spago opened on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood and Los Angeles got a new star. It was Wolfgang Puck’s original paparazzi-hungry restaurant, the place where the city finally admitted that food was part of celebrity. On opening night, twenty-one Rolls-Royces jammed the little parking lot. Inside, the room was dressed in pale pink and beige, with a “see-and-be-seen” exhibition kitchen designed by Barbara Lazaroff glowing like a television set.

The signature bite that night was the now-legendary Smoked Salmon “Jewish Pizza”—a crackle of crisp dough spread with Crème Fraîche, scattered with Chives and Red Onion, and crowned with Caviar. Regulars in those early years included Sidney Poitier, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Billy Wilder, Jack Nicholson, and Warren Beatty, huddled at a center round; Champagne flowed and Jewish Pizzas came and went in stacks, and everyone pretended this was just a regular dinner.