Wolfgang Puck Returns to Indiana

By JULIETTE ROSSANT They're at the gates for the New Year, the start has sounded and it's.... Wolfgang Puck in the lead for 2005 with the first super chef news of the year. What a strange thing it must be for Wolfgang Puck to return to his American roots, back to where he started his fabled ride in American gastronomy: Indianapolis, Indiana. Back in 1973 Puck, then 23, fresh from Cafe Maxim's in Paris, and fellow chef Guy LeRoy got jobs in America in what they thought would be an important gastronomic city, Indianapolis, at La Tour. They quickly figured out that the American culture surrounding the Indianapolis Speedway was not the same thing as Le Mans in France. In 1975, they bought a cheap car and headed West to Los Angeles. The rest is history. (See Super Chef, p. 9). Now, nearly three decadess later, Wolfgang Puck Catering & Events (WPCE) will be running the Indianapolis Musem of Art's new cafe and Puck's (III -- see previous article), a fine dining restaurant at the Indiana Museum of Art. Both are part of a $74 million museum expansansion, scheduled to open May 5th. The 80-seat restaurant and 140-seat cafe will be on the ground level of the three-story gallery pavilion. But is the new fine dining restaurant being run by Wolf's Catering or Fine Dining? These two arms of the Wolfgang Puck empire cooperate extensively, and the presidents of each company hold stock in the other, but there has been rivalry (see Super Chef, pp. 42-44). In Chicago, the now-closed Spago provided the initial kitchen space for catering which won the Catering Company lucrative contracts with the University of Chicago. Previous article: Nick Valenti: Super Chef Master? And Now Puck Paints, Two! Euro Puck Puck in a Box