Wolfgang Puck Answers Restaurant Questions From Twitter

Rate my school lunch please.

You know, it does not look very appetizing.

So I don't know what school you're going to

but I think you should change school.

Hi, I'm Wolfgang Puck, chef and restaurateur.

And today I'm here to answer your questions on Twitter.

This is Restaurant Support.

[dynamic music]

TraceyLuv, how do you become a celebrity chef?

Well, Tracey, that's a stupid question.

You know what?

First you have to become a chef.

Maybe with a little luck you can go on television

and that way you become known to a lot of people.

I hate the word celebrity chef.

You know what?

When people call me that, I say, no, I'm a cook,

I'm a chef, I'm a restaurateur.

Forget about the celebrity.

This is from Centrist Dad.

Seriously though, what is the difference

between three and two Michelin stars?

A lot of two star restaurants are really inventive

and have really great food.

Now, a three star restaurant,

everything has to be perfect.

The food, the service,

the wine cellar, the glassware, the plates.

It's really a combination of a lot of different things.

If you go to a three star restaurant,

it has a certain look, a certain style.

With two stars, you don't have to be as fancy.

Here we have one from Sheena stan.

Why do restaurants only have two or three

it's on the dessert menu?

First of all, Sheena, I gotta teach you English.

I'm an English professor, okay?

But, if you have three great desserts it might be enough.

Who needs six, and two are not that good anyway.

So it's not quantity, it's about quality.

Now, I like lemon, I like a great cheesecake,

and a chocolate souffle.

If you give me these three desserts I come to your house.

Ghostrhi she-her, how do chefs make their food look so nice?

I'm such a good cook, but my presentation game is weak.

Well Ghostrhi she-her, it's so simple.

Buy some edible flowers.

The edible flowers make every dish really beautiful,

so it's easy to do, you can get them at the supermarket.

For example, if you make a salad

you have to get some nice leaves.

Season them with a little salt and pepper.

I like to season my salad on a sheet pan.

Why?

Because I can keep the leaves beautifully separated.

We have our edible flowers here.

You have here some beautiful leaves.

Put them together.

So that way it doesn't just make a big pile of salad.

The bigger the leaves, the easier it is.

Then you take different flowers,

just put bits and pieces on it.

Be generous with it.

Okay, because it's summertime

we need a little orange and a little yellow too.

So easy to make something beautiful

just with a few petals of flowers.

Now I gonna show you how to present a steak beautifully.

Just like we do it at CUT.

Okay, I have my steak right here.

Let's put some onions.

The roasted pepper with all its flavors.

Some mushrooms.

All the vegetables should look nice by themself already.

You don't have to do that much to them.

Put the jalapenos on the side.

We're gonna cut the steak off the bone.

I always put the bone on my steak.

And then don't forget the sprigs.

Now I gonna melt a little bit of my butter

and pour it over the steak.

I love my steak that way.

So you need organically grown flowers.

I generally like a few varieties

like nasturtium or chive flowers.

The great thing with flowers,

it will embellish all your dishes.

You know, all of a sudden from a simple dish,

it looks like summertime.

So flowers are a great way to embellish your salads,

your main courses, whatever it is.

Put a few edible flowers on it

and people are gonna think you are a chef.

This is from Elizabeth Haigh.

Please tell me it's perfectly all right

when opening a restaurant to have, not one,

but several nervous breakdowns, right?

I don't know, Elizabeth, I think keep your cool.

Have a drink or smoke a joint.

Whatever you do just keep your composure.

You don't wanna be so nervous

and make all this staff nervous too.

So even if you have anxieties,

even if you're ready to break down,

you cannot show it to your fellow workers.

You have to be the boss.

They have to feel you are in charge

and you know what you're doing.

Teflon DunDee.

Do restaurant managers still let you wash dishes

if you can't pay your bill?

First of all, look how much money you have in your pocket

before you go to a restaurant.

You know, Teflon DunDee, I have never done that.

Spago is 40 years old,

I have never told a customer to go in the dish washing area

and work there instead of paying the bill.

Though sometimes I would like to,

not because they can't pay their bills,

because they are [beeps].

From max.

Why is truffle so expensive.

It looks so much like moose [beeps].

I haven't seen moose [beeps] yet,

but I love the look of truffles.

The whole world wants white truffles.

The best one comes from Piedmont.

And there's not a lot of it.

You have to go out in the forest and try to find them.

If you get white truffles from Piedmont,

which have this pale color, almost like a new potato,

and you smell them, you know you're not smelling

moose [beeps], if you know what I mean.

Dollar Store Bangalore.

How do chefs do the fast choppy thing?

I gonna show you how to chop perfectly and fast.

Let's take our onion and slice it not all the way through.

Now at home, you might not be as advanced as I am here.

I'm doing that for a living really.

So then you cut it like this, see that?

If you're like to get it really fine, get a knife,

a big chef's knife, hold it at a point.

And then you go up and down with the back of it.

This is how you get really a fine chopped onion.

From Openly Returnal.

What is a cardinal sin in a fine dining restaurant?

I don't like if I go to a fine dining restaurant

and they look down on me.

They think, oh, you know,

you don't pronounce a French wine properly.

And they try to teach you.

I hate when people tell me how to eat something.

And then you eat it and said, what's the deal?

I think really the restaurant, the people

in the restaurant, should make you feel good,

and be sure that you have a good time there.

Then you will come back.

So if they do that, you will go back.

If they do the opposite, you'll say, you know what?

This is a cardinal sin, I don't gonna go back.

From carrobby619.

Rate my school lunch please.

You know, I look at the platter,

I look at the sandwich, and whatever you have in the bowl,

it does not look very appetizing.

It doesn't look like it's that healthy either.

Having some simple white bread

with a Turkey in there, it's boring.

And I don't know what's in the bowl,

if it's a soup or whatever.

And some little thing in a cellophane package.

I would rate it from one out of 10, maybe a one.

So I don't know what school you're going to,

but I think you should change school.

From antidextrous.

How do chefs interview for a job?

I'm assuming some cooking is involved?

You know antidextrous,

I tell people when they come to my restaurant

and wanna be a cook, I said, make me an omelet.

And I will see what kind of a cook you are.

I learned in France to cook my omelet

so the outside is cooked and the inside is still

[speaking French] as we say in France, but still soft.

So that gives you a different textures,

but also much better flavor.

And I tell them, I want my omelet very soft

in the inside and cooked in the outside.

And then they look at me, how do you do that?

A lot of young chefs know how to make a fancy plate maybe,

with not great flavor, but they don't know the simple things

like making an omelet.

From Erika Smaw Dawley.

What is the most important sauce

to have in your cooking arsenal?

Erika, I think the most important thing,

it's a simple sauce, is a beurre blanc.

You reduce some white wine with shallots,

maybe some tarragon, a little pepper,

and then add a little touch of cream,

and finish it with butter.

You can use that for so many things.

If you make a sauce for a fish,

if you make a sauce for vegetables,

like for asparagus or artichokes.

Always have a good stock, reduce it, and add butter to it.

From cafelawyer.

I wonder which celebrity chefs

are the biggest offscreen rivals?

I reckon Calombaris versus Manu on the undercard

followed by...

Well, maybe Gordon Ramsay against Wolfgang Puck.

Maybe, it could happen.

But you know what?

I don't think we are big rivals, like with the chefs I know.

If it's Gordon, or Daniel, or Eric Ripert, or Nobu,

we really are very good friends.

So I don't think these rivalries

are made up for all these cooking shows.

Okay, Jeroen.

What is the difference between a julienne and a chiffonade?

Well Jeroen, I will show it to you

and then you will never forget it.

A chiffonade we use sorrel, or basil, or spinach.

So it's basically thin leaves cut into slices.

Try to keep the fingers away from the knife.

You don't wanna put blood to your chiffonade here.

All right, and here we go.

That's a chiffonade of basil here, see that?

A julienne generally is done with a carrot,

with leeks, with something harder.

So you put 'em all together in a packet like that.

[knife chopping]

Et voila.

And here it's a julienne.

I had to keep it as tight as possible.

And that's how you julienne and chiffonade.

I'm eating the props.

This is from Kaitlyn Elizabeth.

The more I cook I'm realizing I need to work on two things.

Timing, none of my [beeps] is ever done at the same time.

I always end up dirtying every plate, pot, pan,

utensils in the kitchen.

How do I fix that?

You have to strategize what you're gonna use

to cook a steak with, how you're gonna plate it, in advance.

Different items cook at different timings.

So if your cook a steak, it might take 10, 15 minutes.

But if you cook pasta, it might take only five minutes.

So whatever you cook, you have to time it

so that way it's perfectly fine.

Make a plan first, get organized.

Natalie Kinkead.

Okay Twitter, how do I start a restaurant easily?

A very vivid business idea spoke to me in my dreams.

So much I thought it was already a thing.

Well Natalie, if it looks too easy,

it's done by professional.

So when you're gonna open a restaurant

you better learn at somebody else expenses.

Go and work in a restaurant and see really what's going on.

This is not a dream, this is reality.

When you have to meet payroll at the end of the week

and you don't have the money in the bank,

you're gonna have to go to your personal bank account

and pay these people.

If not, they're gonna leave.

Cooking is one thing,

but managing is a more complex thing than you think.

Dubai Guy.

What is the difference between casual and fine dining?

Fine dining can be in a way casual too.

That's true.

But generally a casual place is not really fine dining.

You can see it on the menu.

You can see the ingredients they use.

Whereas fine dining, it's always upscale.

Maybe it might not look really upscale.

It could be like a bistro look,

or it could be really simple.

But it's the cooking and the ingredients

which make a big difference.

In fine dining, not only you're gonna get great food,

but also great service,

and have maybe a wonderful wine list or a cocktail list.

So it goes really all together.

Casual dining, you might have a hamburger and a beer.

It's still a delicious hamburger and a beer,

but fine dining is on a different level.

It's like being in economy class or in first class.

Mikeposner.

Why do chefs wear such tall hats?

Well Mike, you know, these days it has changed a lot.

Not many chefs wear actually these tall hats,

at least not in America.

In the old time, the chef always had the biggest toque,

and the cooks in the kitchen had the smaller toques.

So that was old style.

But now we are more democratic.

Everybody wears a little hat.

I don't think we need these big hats anymore.

HaleemKhane.

I might be super slow, but what does chef's kiss mean?

You know, [smacks] it's perfect.

That's what it means.

From Hoochie Dad.

Why do chefs wear white?

That's like the most impractical color

a chef could possibly wear.

Well Hoochie Dad, look at me.

I am blue color, I have a blue jacket.

So I think it is nice though to have a white jacket

if you cook a lot, because it shows off if it's dirty,

it shows off if it's not clean.

I don't stand behind the stove 24 hours a day.

So I walk around and that way they know

Wolfgang has a blue jacket on.

But, you know, it's traditional, so.

Ice ice baby.

Why do chefs put sauce on the plate

instead of putting it on the food?

Ice ice baby, we try not to cover up the food.

We want the food to shine.

We want the ingredients you're eating,

if it's a chicken or a piece of fish,

we don't want it covered up.

In the old time refrigeration wasn't good,

transportation wasn't good,

so they covered up a lot of dishes with a lot of sauces.

So that way, really, if it wasn't that fresh

you didn't notice it.

But these days, keep it simple.

From Colin Harmon.

Do restaurateurs feel strongly

against people getting a table for one?

Always feel I'm pushing my luck.

Well Colin, I think if you come to Spago, or CUT,

or Chinois, you will be welcome if you come alone.

And hopefully you'll have a good waiter,

or a good sommelier, or a good manager,

who can entertain you a little bit.

I go to eat by myself many times too.

And you know what?

I actually love it because I can

concentrate on the food and on the wine.

And if somebody comes to talk to me, I'm happy to talk too.

But, eating alone can be just as enjoyable.

From the Cutting Board Catering Co.

I had conversation with my homeboy earlier

about my plans for opening a restaurant.

And now my wheels are spinning.

What type of atmosphere are you most likely

to gravitate to when going out for brunch or dinner?

Do you prefer upbeat lively vibes

or something dimly lit and chill?

I like noise in my restaurant.

I don't like it to be so quiet.

I always tell people, you know, I'm not going to church,

I'm not going to a temple, I wanna have fun.

To me, having great food, great wine,

and fun is the perfect combination.

From Melanie Calphas.

What's a recipe or dish that you feel

every chef should know and master?

You know Melanie, I think, I judge a chef

for many different things.

How to make a perfect egg dish,

if it's scrambled or an omelet.

Or how to make a good soup.

You know, right away, if they know how to cook.

Sometimes the simple things to do are the most difficult.

Where people get really nervous and say,

oh my God, I cannot add 20 different things to one dish.

I have to keep it with five ingredients

and make something really delicious.

So, if you love to cook fish, well, get good at it.

And remember, practice makes better.

From metalstone2000.

How does one refine their palate?

I have been trying to for a long time.

Well, metalstone, I think the most important thing

is that you love food.

The more you taste, the better you're gonna get.

It's the same thing with wine.

You can actually start with the cheap wine,

and then slowly go up and buy better, and better wine.

And you will know the difference.

There are people out there who don't care

about the difference, who have no taste,

no palate, and are not interested in it.

But if you're interested in food,

sooner or later you will really refine your palate.

Le total random.

Why do restaurants fail?

Well, you know what, marriages fail, restaurants fail.

Except the percentage of restaurants failing

is much higher than marriages.

Why?

There are a lot of ingredients who are necessary

to make a restaurant successful and not fail.

I know.

But I think a lot of people look at me in the restaurants

and I can do what Wolfgang does.

You know, they see me in the dining room, greeting guests,

and they say, that's so easy.

They forget, I got up in the morning,

went to the fish market,

or went to the farmer's market, got the ingredients.

And then talked with the chef,

what we're gonna do, help them develop recipes.

So there are so many different things going on.

If I would know 100%, I would be really rich

because I would be the most

expensive consultant in the world.

It's not just about the food.

It's really, how do we make our guests feel

at the end of the day?

So the hospitality is just as important.

From amy selwood.

I have been good and I'm cooking more veggies,

but why do they taste so much better

when they are covered in salt and butter?

As Julia Child said 100 years ago,

butter makes everything taste better.

But you know, not just butter.

It's the way you cook your veggies.

If you're grill them, if you roast them,

they will taste so much better

than if you just boil them or steam them.

You roast carrots, just try to put carrots in the oven,

maybe with a little olive oil, a little butter,

some spices on it, maybe a little cinnamon,

maybe a little allspice, a little salt and pepper,

and roast them until they're really tender.

They have this concentrated flavor.

So if you boil them, the water will soak out the flavor.

So even if you put butter on it, you will taste the butter.

But I think concentrating the flavor is really important.

And you can do that by grilling and by roasting.

So there are all the questions for today.

If you need any other question answered

just come to Spago, or Merois,

or any of our restaurants, you will find me there.

And just ask me whatever you think you need to know.

Until next time, I love you and goodbye.