If one had to choose two colours to represent the husband and wife team behind California's most celebrated restaurant, Spago in downtown Los Angeles, it would definitely be fire engine red for her and cool green for him. Wolfgang Puck and Barbara Lazaroff are very much opposites which irresistibly attract. Austrian born and raised, Wolfgang is the master chef whose retiring manner belies his extraordinary culinary skills, while Barbara's intuitive design genius sparks with a personality whose vibrancy could have come from nowhere other than New York City.

To an outsider looking in it might be difficult to comprehend how such seemingly different personalities could fuse as successfully as these two have. And not just as a married couple, but as business partners, whose combined concerns span four restaurants, a brewery and a design company; Imaginings Interior Design. What is more astonishing perhaps is the fact that in a city given over to trend and the short life this entails, the names and enterprises of Wolfgang Puck and Barbara Lazaroff Puck are trendy without risking passe.

Asked to define the difference between a great chef and a good chef Wolfgang Puck once replied that the former innovates while the latter follows. Using his own definition therefore Wolfgang is a great chef; although the modest Puck would never define himself thus.

"I cook what I like to eat", smiles Wolfgang. "There is nothing extraordinary in this. That what I do is considered great is not for me to judge". Perhaps, but there is no denying that since arriving in the United States in 1973, Wolfgang Puck has redefined the often narrow parameters of quality dining. With a panache for making even the most humble morsel seem irresistibly delectable, Wolfgang has embraced both the stylish traditions of classical European cuisine and the typically casual Los Angeles attitude toward life. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the dish Wolfgang chose as his signature cuisine.

"Pizzas!" explains Barbara, mimicking the incredulous cries of those the couple first approached to back them with their concept for Spago. "After cooking for some of the best restaurants in the world, and producing classical French dishes, you want to open a restaurant in LA to make pizzas!?" Barbara Lazaroff is able to laugh now, but eleven years ago when she and Wolfgang had to have a friend co-sign a bank loan for money to open Spago, there was rather scant mirth around. "It is the dream of every chef to have their own restaurant, just as it's the dream of every ballerina to be a Prima ballerina; Wolfgang was no different.

"Wolfgang was already well known at the time, particularly in culinary circles", she continues. "I mean, he had been working at some of the best restaurants all over the country, including Ma Maison in LA, not to mention in France at restaurants of the calibre of the famed L'Ousteu Baumaniere, so he was no stranger to the whole notion of fine dining. Yet when we proposed opening Spago and having pizzas on the menu no one could understand it".

What those approached failed to understand it seems was that Wolfgang's concept of what constitutes a pizza and what they envisaged it to be were quite disparate ideas. "With his formal training in French cuisine and his ability to conceive of creative ideas, it should have been apparent that what Wolfgang had in mind was something quite out of the ordinary".

Indeed it was. Gourmet pizzas with such exotic toppings as goat cheese and homemade sausage, cooked in enormous wood-burning ovens, they were to become the unlikely showpiece of the Puck-Lazaroff enterprise. An inspired blend of upmarket trendiness and old fashioned heartiness they became the dish to be seen treating yourself to when in the City of Los Angeles. Not bad for a boy from a tiny Austrian village and a Jewish girl from a middle-class family out of the Bronx.

To equate Spago with a pizza parlour however, would be like comparing Gone With The Wind with the banality of a soap opera. Both are Hollywood, but where one is French champagne the other is flat beer.

"What I found when I arrived in America in the early Seventies", explains Wolfgang, "was that there was too much emphasis placed on service and not enough on the food itself. The result was that patrons at even some of the best restaurants were being well looked after but not getting what I would consider quality cuisine. What really annoyed me too was that at some of the earlier places I worked in, someone other than the chef would prepare the menu. This meant that often I was cooking what the management thought should be served and not what could be prepared given the available produce and so forth. Too many very good possibilities were lost this way, and that is why I knew I just had to get my own place where I decide what to cook and not just how to cook it. Soon after I met Barbara in 1975 I knew that finally here was the chance to collaborate with someone whose incredible flair for design would complement my ideas for simple yet creative dishes".

Indeed Wolfgang could not have found a more suitable soulmate. Initially trained in theatre design, lighting and acting Barbara Lazaroff was also an NYU graduate in Bio-Chemistry and Experimental Psychology and a woman whose abundant creative potential was bursting to find the right medium for expression. In a rundown restaurant in downtown LA the two found a common purpose. Here finally was the space within which Wolfgang could realise his ambition to have his own restaurant, and just as significantly Barbara's flair for whimsy yet totally dynamic talents for turning wallflowers into blossoming gardens could have their way.

"I knew what I wanted to cook", says Wolfgang. "And I also knew that I wanted a place where people could come and hang out, a place that was easy going rather than stuffy and complicated. Stuffiness just isn't me, nor I discovered was it Barbara. I wanted the sort of restaurant where the emphasis was on the quality of the food rather than the degree or otherwise of the pretentiousness. In fact my idea was probably to have sawdust on the floor and checquered tableclothes...."

"This place had been on the market for over five years", Barbara cuts in, anxious to point out that the problem was not the location rather the lack of foresight of the people who came to inspect it. "Sure it was rundown", she continues, "but I knew what Wolf wanted, and I also knew what the space offered. Checquered tableclothes it wasn't, but not strictly starched linen either let me add. When Wolf first took me to see this place I thought we'd have to have midget waiters, the ceilings were so low! It was like what Wolf refers to as a cave; dark, narrow and low".

But this was not to be the case, for long. Inspired by the challenge to transform carbon into diamond, Barbara and Wolfgang set about implementing their unique and quite individual visions. For Wolfgang it meant establishing a restaurant in keeping with his philosophy for producing high quality yet inexpensive food. Barbara saw it as a way of implementing what she calls 'participatory dining'.

"I think what we did was to open up the entire social aspect of dining", explains Barbara with obvious pride. "I like to think of what we did as allowing even the lone diner to feel that he or she is part of some greater collective whole. That's why I went for the exhibition kitchen where the chef is in full view of the patrons who can then see the dishes being prepared. I'd say this was the foundation for casual chic dining which then swept through not just LA, but the rest of the States as well".

This was back in 1981 when such openness was so radical to the point of being a new definition of 'sophisticated chic' - just the sort of thing gimmick loving Los Angeles loved. The difference however between this concept and others realised in fad-crazed California, was that this was no junior entrepreneur looking for a quick way to make a buck. Barbara Lazaroff is both an astute businesswoman and social observer, and when she conceived of the idea for an open kitchen where the chef would not just be prominent but a star attraction, she also considered the potential dangers of becoming just another short term in place.

"No matter how different the environment, no matter how novel the concept, the food is what finally brings people back", she states firmly. "We both wanted the same thing ultimately; to create a place where people felt that they were coming into our home. That's why I wanted to put in contemporary art, because that's what I would have in my house. The initial investors wouldn't have any of this of course because it was too different from what was then the done thing in restaurants. Can you imagine, a kitchen where the chef is out there in the open, and fine artworks all under the one roof?... Today it's all quite normal, but eleven years ago..."

If the design of this radical new restaurant - complete with specially commissioned wine labels designed by the late Andy Warhol, and Robert Rauschenberg to grace Spago's own Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon - wasn't creating a new level of excitement, no less so was the cuisine. Tired of turning out the standard classical fare, Wolfgang Puck had begun to experiment with the whole notion of what had been referred to as California Cuisine, where the emphasis is on blending the best of the old world traditions with the freshest Californian ingredients and culinary styles from places as diverse as Spain, Italy, Mexico amongst others. It was here that Wolfgang excelled, creating dishes which stand alone for their ingenuity and skill of execution. "California was bursting with all these nouvelle cuisine style restaurants", explains Wolfgang. "All very pretentious, all very expensive. And all decidedly very French oriented. Now, I too have been influenced by French cooking; after all I decided to become an apprentice chef at age 14 after seeing several French chefs create masterpieces during an exhibition in Austria. And I did work in several French restaurants - including Maxims in Paris, before coming to the United States, so in a sense I was part of that whole movement. What irked me was that it was all so put on, as though because it was a French restaurant it was somehow better than anything else - whether it merited the accolade or not.

"Barbara and I decided what was needed was a place that would suit the environment in which it operated", he continues. "And I really do think that Spago was really the first restaurant here in LA designed to suite the people who actually live here". And as one comes to expect of this dynamic couple, Wolfgang is quick to give credit where it is due and cites Barbara's uncanny ability to interpret the potential of the space and then come up with something that is so totally in keeping with the social culture.

A city which makes heroes out of movie stars and corporate heads alike, Los Angeles has the kind of cultural milieu in which someone as outwardly gregarious and free thinking as Barbara Lazaroff puck can excel. Hers is not a mind given to conformity and even less to conservatism, and this is perhaps why she is as suited to the LA profile as is the paparazzi haunted Spago. Both are products of the one ambition, to be successful. But where LA is largely mirrors and trick doors, Barbara and Spago are definitely the stuff of substance. Take Barbara's attitude toward food for instance. Not for her the long, looking down one's nose approach to dining.

"Dining is not about gazing lovingly at a plate", she announces matter-of-factly. "Food has everything to do with eating, and very little to do with mere appearance. It saddens me to hear chefs say things such as: 'This dish is just too beautiful to eat. I'd much rather look at it than eat it'. This is sad because it misses the whole point of why a chef like Wolf creates a fabulous dish. Sure Wolf creates dishes which are wonderful to look at, but surely the end purpose is to give the client quality food.

"The whole concept of eating well is analogous to looking at two very beautiful women", Barbara continues. "One, is beautiful almost to the point of perfection. The other has beauty but also an underlying sensuality. It is this slightly askew element in the second one which makes her intriguing, inviting and stimulating. Food has that same capacity to intrigue and delight when prepared properly. Ultimately, however food is about eating, and that is the craft for which Wolf has won acclaim".

Acclaim indeed. So successful has his distinctly Californian cooking become that he and Barbara have put out both a cookbook and an instructional video entitled Spago Cooking with Wolfgang Puck. That the name Spago should be identified with a style of cooking says volumes abut what Wolfgang Puck has achieved with is cuisine.

"I think of food as food rather than art", explains Wolfgang emphatically. "Very early in my career here in the United States I moved away from the whole notion of nouvelle cuisine. I moved on from presenting food where the emphasis in on presentation, to dishes where the focus is on the ingredients, their freshness and the overall quality of the taste experience. for me, food should be freeform like a painting rather than like architecture. If food is fresh and good quality you don't have to do too much to it. I like to teach people to actually do less, because it's very easy to impress someone with something which is complicated. The problem is however that you end up with so many things on the plate that overall it doesn't make any sense at all. Food must stimulate all the senses, and make you happy...."

"What is truly interesting", adds Barbara, "is that Wolf has this formal training to draw from and yet he is not restricted by it in the way that many chefs are. There is a spirit in Wolf which strives for creativity and experimentation. This is a great combination, and it goes some way toward explaining why he and I are so well matched; neither of us has ever set limits on what we believe we can do".

Anyone even remotely familiar with the work of these two quite diverse individuals cannot help but agree. While Spago certainly won them fame, wealth and recognition it is merely one part - albeit the founding block - of a much larger jigsaw of business concerns. Since the early Eighties the Pucks have been meticulously building a quite impressive portfolio of enterprises, the most comprehensive of which is undoubtedly the Eureka restaurant within the Los Angeles Brewing Company, of which Wolfgang is President.

Established in 1983 and founded by B. Andrew Hoffman, the Brewery has set its sights on promoting both the restaurant and the beer which share a common name. First brewed in 1989 the Eureka California Lager is like most things that have the Puck-Lazaroff touch, unique. A Bavarian style lager beer, it is brewed in the strict compliance with the Reinheitsegebot - the brewing purity law first introduced in 1516 by William IV, Elector of Bavaria. Brewed solely from malted barley or wheat, hops, water and yeast, the beer contains no other additives and is hand worked by Brewmaster Mark Scott.

But it is the restaurant within the Brewery which singularly optimises the characteristic Puck-Lazaroff partnership. and perhaps nowhere more so than in what Barbara herself calls her 'non-industrial' design. Faced with the challenge of designing a restaurant within a working brewery, Barbara says that she was conscious of wanting to design a space which would be appropriate for both the traditional beer drinker and the gourmet diner. The result is a restaurant whose galvanised metal chairs and stools, elaborate use of copper for doors, kitchen hoods and decorative detailing, artisan-crafted ceramic tiles, and enormous works of art which include a 5 metre long kinetic wall depicting the inner workings of the Eureka brewery and various Hollywood fantasia, give one the sense of being in an avant garde gallery.

"Eureka took four years to realise", smiles Barbara, whose penchant for breaking new ground in restaurant design is evident in every corner of this establishment. "Because we were looking to set up a restaurant within a brewery we had to do things like get new laws passed, so if someone were to ask me what my role is. I'd have to say that while I am certainly an artist I've also had to have a practical business role.

"Practicality of course is something I take very seriously when I design", she continues. "There is more to designing a restaurant than simply placing a kitchen here, a few tables there and so on. When I design I like to talk to the chef and find out exactly what his needs are as well as how many tables the space is to hold. This helps determine such things as where the air-conditioning and air vents go. Simple things perhaps, but imagine putting the air-conditioning over the pick-up shelf where a plate might sit for a minute before being taken out to the patron. The food would be cold when it got tot he table. And then there's the task of lighting the kitchen sufficiently well so that the chef can see small areas like the grill, yet not so bright that it intrudes into the dining area. And when you have open kitchens this is particularly important, as is the noise factor from any working kitchen".

For Wolfgang, Eureka is the perfect venue for his home-made sausages, salamis, prosciuttos and of course his pizzas - which since 1987 incidentally have been available in the freezer section of select distributors. Not quite the working man's club, Eureka is nonetheless more casual than either Spago or that other Puck-Lazaroff venture, Chinois on Main.

While Barbara Lazaroff Puck has stamped her unique design signature on every undertaking, 'Chinois' comes closest perhaps to being her personal triumph. Indicative of her inspired thinking, Barbara even designed the round tables herself so that they could be converted to squares and pushed together when required to accommodate a larger than usual number of guests. As with the other restaurants, Chinois also boasts an open kitchen where Wolfgang can cook the restaurant's distinctive Asian-French style cuisine when he is not ensconced at Spago. With its towering antique cloisonne cranes, Oriental and contemporary art, and its orchid and bromeliad garden, Chinois is said to be very much a reflection of Barbara's own whimsical nature, and just the sort of place popular with the likes of Johnny Carson, Tom Selleck and Jacqueline Bisset.

"The beauty of the places we run", smiles Wolfgang, "is that sure, there are the limos outside, but there are also Toyotas and runabouts out there. A whole range of people feel comfortable about coming here to Spago or going to Chinois, or even to Postrio (the couple's only restaurant outside of Southern California located in the Prescott Hotel near San Francisco's Union Square). People feel comfortable with Barbara because she knows how to make people feel welcome and at home. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about a Joan Collins, a Paul Anka or a Hollywood producer, Barbara knows how to treat them so each guest is made to feel special..."

"And you know the really interesting thing?" adds Barbara. "There aren't any so-called best tables at our restaurants, yet so many people insist on having a particular table that sometimes it creates problems that shouldn't be there. After all Wolf doesn't differentiate between one table and the next when he's cooking, and our staff are too professional to get involved in that sort of game either. I have a recurring nightmare where the BIG earthquake strikes LA and everyone who is anyone in LA is here at Spago. Suddenly there is no way out, and we're all stuck here for days on end having to accommodate demands for the best table at every sitting - including breakfast.

"Years ago there was the Spagonisation of America", Barbara continues with only a half-disguised laugh of still lingering surprise. "Restaurants everywhere suddenly had to have open kitchens and wood ovens, pizza and a grill. But we led the way I guess in that we took a gamble when everyone else was still being rather conservative. In light of this it wouldn't suit us to be stuffy and pretentious".

The benefactors of the various charities with whom the Pucks are intimately involved would certainly agree that aloofness is not a Puck-Lazaroff trademark. Since the early Eighties the dynamic duo have raised in excess of $600,000 for LA's Meals on Wheels, and the annual American Food & Wine Festival has become a Puck tradition. The respect in which Wolfgang is held by his peers is evident in the fact that every year he has twenty of America's top chefs and between forty and fifty wineries donate their services, to raise money for the less privileged. At $2000 a table, the American Food & Wine Festival forms an integral part of the Wolfgang Puck Charitable Foundation.

With his philanthropic concerns, a brewery, a video, two cookbooks, and a string of successful restaurants with a new one, in Malibu currently on the drawing board, to his credit, it would not be unreasonable to suggest that Wolfgang Puck has achieved the status of a celebrity in his own right.

"Initially I wanted to be an architect", he says softly. "But there was only one architectural school in Austria and my family did not have the money to afford my tuition, so at 14 I took up an apprenticeship as a chef. Although my mother was a hotel chef it wasn't until a group of French chefs came to Austria as part of a Gastronomic Week that I really fell in love with the whole concept of cuisine. From that moment there was no turning back, and by age 17 I was working in France - learning all I could, and travelling to Italy to hone my skills still further. Today Barbara inspires my cooking as much as anything else I've ever experienced. In fact before I decide on a menu for a restaurant I wait until I see what Barbara has done to it, to get a sense of what the place will be like. To date we seem to have made the right decision".

In the background Barbara is busy directing the staff for that evenings sitting, shuffling papers on which she has been making notes for an upcoming Anti-Child Abuse dinner to be hosted by Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Rivers, before returning to join her husband for the photographic shoot.

"Much of what we do comes from within", she smiles warmly. "You have to go with what you've got. You have to be able to do it for yourself. And you have to understand that all people fundamentally have the same basic wants and needs".

When the eager dinner crowd arrives a few minutes later, it's obvious from the animated chatter and waves of recognition, that for the very genuine proprietors at least, Spago meets these wants and needs marvellously well.

SPAGO'S CLASSIC PIZZA DOUGH

1 package active dry or fresh yeast

1 teaspoon honey or sugar

3/4 cup warm water (105-1150F)

2 x 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons olive oil for brushing

topping of choice

In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast and honey in 1/4 cup of warm water.

In blender fitted with a dough hook, combine the flour and the salt. Pour in two tablespoons of the oil and when absorbed, scrape in the dissolved yeast. Add the remaining 1/2 cup of water and knead on low speed for about 5 minutes.

Turn out onto a floured board and knead for about 2-3 minutes longer (the dough should then be smooth and firm). Allow to rise in a warm spot covered with a damp cloth for approx. 30 minutes. (The dough should stretch when lightly pulled).

Divide the dough into balls of about 170g each. Work each ball by pulling down the sides and tucking under the bottom of the ball. Repeat procedures 4-5 times. Then, on a smooth unfloured surface, roll the ball under the palm of your hand until the dough is smooth and firm (approx. 1 minute). Cover with a damp towel and allow to rest for a further 15-20 minutes. At this point, the balls can be loosely covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated for 1-2 days if desired.

Makes four 15cm-17.5cm pizzas.

GRILLED SHRIMP SALAD

400g large unpeeled shrimp

salt, freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 large radicchio leaves

3 cups assorted greens, (baby chicory, mache, watercress etc.)

1/3 cup vinaigrette

4 Belgian endive leaves

4-6 stems garlic chives

fine julienne of red, yellow and green bell pepper as garnish.

SAUCE

400g Italian plum tomatoes, cored and cut into chunks

2 jalapeno peppers, cored, seeded and quartered

2-3 garlic cloves

1 teaspoon tomato paste

1/2 bunch cilantro, leaves only

salt, freshly ground pepper

To prepare the sauce:

In a blender or a food processor fitted with the steel balde, puree the tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, garlic and tomato paste. Transfer to a medium bowl. Chop the cilantro lettuce leaves very finely and fold into the sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste and set aside.

Peel the shrimp and butterfly. Season lightly with salt and pepper and toss in the olive oil. Refrigerate until needed. On a preheated grill, grill the shrimp just until the flesh turns opaque (about 2 minutes on one side and 1 minute on the other):

Set the radicchio leaves on one half of a large serving platter. Toss the greens with the vinaigrette and spoon equal amounts into each of the radicchio leaves. Place the endive attractively around the radicchio. Nap the remaining half of the platter with the sauce and arrange the shrimp on the sauce. Garnish with the garlic chives and the julienne of peppers. Serve immediately. (You can also do this on individual platters, placing one radicchio leaf on each plate, dividing the remaining ingredients equally).

PIZZA WITH SMOKED SALMON AND CAVIAR

Serves Four

1 recipe pizza dough (as above)

150g smoked salmon

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 medium red onion, cut into julienne strips

1/4 bunch fresh dill, minced plus 4 small sprigs for garnish

1/3 cup sour cream or creme fraiche

freshly ground pepper

4 heaped tablespoons golden caviar

1 heaped tablespoon black caviar

Place a pizza stone inside the oven and preheat the oven to 5000F for 30 minutes.

Cut the salmon into paper thin slices and reserve.

Roll or stretch the pizza dough into four 17cm circles. Brush the centre of each pizza with olive oil and sprinkle each with some of the red onion julienne. Place the pizzas onto the stone and bake for 8-12 minutes or, until the crust is golden brown.

Meanwhile, mix the dill with the sour cream or creme fraiche and season with ground pepper to taste. Transfer the pizzas to heated dinner plates and spread a layer of sour cream mixture over the top. Divide the salmon and arrange decoratively on top of the cream. Place 1 tablespoon of golden caviar in the centre of each pizza, then a little black caviar in the centre of the golden caviar.

Garnish each pizza with a small dill sprig and serve immediately.

WHISKY FUDGE CAKE

1 1/4 cup pastry or cake flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

300g bittersweet chocolate, cut into small chunks

12 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/4 cups sugar

4 eggs separated

1/3 cups whisky or brandy, slightly warmed

1 tablespoon vanilla

confectioners sugar

Preheat the oven to 1600C. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and set a 20cm x 6.5cm ring on top. Wrap a 20cm cardboard round with foil and set aside.

In a small bowl, sift together the flour and the baking soda. Reserve. In a double boiler, or a metal bowl placed over simmering water, melt the chocolate. Keep warm.

Meanwhile, with the paddle of an electric mixer, cream the butter until light. Gradually add one cup of sugar and continue to cream until fluffy.

Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, then add the whisky or brandy and vanilla. Scrape in the melted chocolate and mix until well-combined. Remove the bowl from the machine and fold in half the flour mixture. Fold in the remaining flour.

With a clean whisk and bowl, whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 1/4 of a cup of sugar and continue to whisk until shiny and firm, but not stiff. Stir 1/4 of the whites into the batter to lighten, then fold in the remaining whites.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake ring and bake for 1 hour. Invert immediately onto the foil-covered round and run a sharp knife around the sides of the cake, loosening cake from the ring. DO NOT REMOVE THE RING. Let cool completely on a rack. Carefully lift off the ring.

Dust the cake with sifted confectioner's sugar and serve with creme fraiche or whipped cream.