By now “California pizza,” synonymous with
Wolfgang Puck’s pizzas, is part of our everyday
vocabulary. Puck’s pizzas can be found in
supermarkets coast to coast, and California Pizza
Kitchen has more than 130 restaurants nationwide.
But it was Ed LaDou, dubbed “the prince of
pizza” by Gourmet magazine restaurant critic
Jonathan Gold, who started it all.
A self-taught cook, Ed was working at a Bay
Area Italian restaurant in 1975. “I was concerned
about the slow lunch business,” said this softspoken
man when I met him at Caioti Pizza Cafe,
his humble Studio City pizza parlor, “so I started
creating specials with pizza.” LaDou began pilfering
ingredients from the pasta station—eggplant,
zucchini, and chopped garlic—and sprinkling
them on the pizzas. “Customers liked the new
creations, like pizza with onions, garlic, and
clams instead of the plain red sauce. Although
the restaurant was successful, the owners weren’t
very encouraging: my pizzas never made it to the
menu because they were not conventional.”
A few years later, Ed found himself making
pizzas at Wolfgang Puck’s newly opened Spago.
“Wolfgang was always bringing in new ingredients,
so I could create a pizza with scallops, fish
roe, zucchini flowers, tomato, and red onion,
seasoned with fresh dill. I would get there an
hour before the rest of the cooks did and look at
the day’s ingredients. I took pizza out of its static
form, opened the door, and applied creative
Pacific Rim, Greek, and Mediterranean flavors.
In my mind, I Americanized it by using all those
different ethnic cultures. The wood-burning
pizzas were such a novelty, and an even greater
novelty was Wolfgang’s association with them,
so he got the credit.”
In 1985 two lawyers approached LaDou to
help them create the first California Pizza
Kitchen, in Beverly Hills. “The chef bailed out
before the restaurant opened,” said Ed, “so I put
together the original menu of pastas, pizzas, and
salads. My barbecued chicken pizza with smoked
Gouda is still on the menu.” The restaurant was
so successful that Ed was given a small share of
the profits before it went nationwide. He used the
money to open Caioti Pizza Cafe in 1987.
Ed Ladou