Nothing is a sure thing on Oscar night. Best Pictures go to undeserving dark horses. Starlets stumble. Acceptance speeches meander (well, maybe that is a sure thing).
But at the official after-party, things are far more certain. Wolfgang Puck’s macaroni and cheese will be delicious. His chicken potpies will be warm and satisfying. And there will be Champagne. Lots of Champagne.
This will be the celebrity chef’s 22nd year catering the post-ceremony Governors Ball, and while he has yet to see any of this year’s Best Picture nominees — he has two young children, so the latest “Star Wars” is more his ticket — he has his favorites in the Oscar race.
“I would like to have Leo DiCaprio win. He’s a great actor and has done a lot of great movies already,” Puck says. He also praises DiCaprio’s palate.
“Leo DiCaprio is great — he loves to taste different flavors. When he comes to the restaurant [Puck’s Spago in Beverly Hills, Calif.], we just send him food out [of the kitchen] and he loves to get all these different flavors.”
For Best Picture, the 66-year-old culinary spitfire predicts either “The Revenant” or “The Martian” will nab the trophy. Whatever happens, “The Revenant” director Alejandro G. Iñárritu will get a surprise at the after-party. Puck is cooking a special dish for the Mexican auteur.
“We have to make a fish Veracruz, so he feels like he’s at home,” the chef says. “It’s sauteed onions, bell peppers, and then a little touch of garlic, and some tomato sauce, some jalapeño, obviously. Then some capers and olives. I put in some oregano, and we cook the fish on top of the sauce like that. We bake it in the oven, and it comes out really tasty.”
Other dishes Puck is excited about this year include fresh king crabs and a new vegan rice dish with mushrooms, truffles, English peas and a spinach puree that was a hit at a recent tasting in advance of the big event.
But it’s classic Puck comfort-food dishes that are really the surefire winners.
“Charlize Theron, she loves [my] smoked-salmon pizza,” he says. Sly Stallone, too, especially when Puck cookie-cuts the pie into the shape of Oscar statuettes.
He says John Travolta loves his mac ’n’ cheese, while Barbra Streisand and European royals are fans of the potpies.
“Prince Albert of Monaco, he came two years ago, we gave him the chicken potpie and he said, ‘Oh my God, you have to open a restaurant in Monaco. That’s the best thing I ever had,’ ” recalls Puck. “I told him, ‘Don’t tell that to [famed chef and Monaco native] Alain Ducasse.’”
And while Hollywood types are notorious for diets and dietary restrictions, Puck says all is forgotten and forgiven at his after-party.
“Everybody’s so hungry after the show,” he says. “I think a lot of people forget that they’re vegetarians.”
