PUCK

LOS ANGELES became America’s best food city for a lot of reasons; three of them are Wolfgang Puck, Nancy Silverton, and Roy Choi. The Austrian-born Puck left Ma Maison to conjure his take on California cuisine (pizza topped with caviar and smoked salmon) at the original Spago, opened in 1982 on the Sunset Strip, and at the restaurant’s current flagship in Beverly Hills. His fame now approaches that of the celebrities he feeds annually at the Academy Awards’ Governors Ball. An obsessive master of breads, Valley native Silverton cofounded, with Puck-alum and then-husband Mark Peel, the landmark Campanile and its adjacent La Brea Bakery in 1989; today, she presides over the acclaimed Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria in Hancock Park and spends half the year in central Italy, absorbing tastes and techniques. Choi was born in Seoul and grew up in Anaheim working at his parents’ Korean restaurant. After training at the Culinary Institute of America and becoming chef at the Beverly Hilton, he launched his revolutionary Kogi gourmet food trucks in 2008, delivering a startling cross-cultural menu of bulgogi tacos and kimchi quesadillas to the streets. —S.A.