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Recently, I had the pleasure to spend a day with the Golden Boy of California style pizza—Ed LaDou. Formerly known as the “King of California Pizza”, LaDou now prefers to leave out the ubiquitous “California” part. Hitting his stride as one of the great masters of American Pizza, LaDou prefers the moniker: Contemporary American Pizza Chef. Over the past 26 years, Ed LaDou has continued to refine his philosophy and hone his craft; he casts a long shadow over the pizza landscape of this country and has quite a story to tell.
The path to pizza
At the ripe age of 19, Ed started out as a dishwasher at Frankie, Johnnie and Luigi Too, one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most popular Italian restaurants, where he quickly advanced to cook. In this kitchen, Ed worked both the hot side and the pizza side. It was in this first experience that he first realized the inequity with the pizza end of the kitchen and the other dishes.
As he worked the pizza station and realized that it had the same 10 toppings that every pizza station did—mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, sausage, salami, pepperoni, olives, anchovies, tomato sauce and cheese—it dawned on him, that he could utilize the ingredients from the other side of the kitchen on his pizzas. Ed wondered why there was fresh garlic on the pasta side, and powdered garlic on the pizza side, why were fresh mushrooms on the pasta side and canned mushrooms on the pizza side and why were other fresh ingredients like zucchini, clams and shrimp, which were destined for pasta, not allowed to be used for pizza? It was here that the seeds of his future style of pizza, and the style he would become famous for, were first planted.
The next job led him to become the pizza cook at San Francisco’s newest hot spot: Prego. In 1979, Prego was the first of the modern Italian cuisine type restaurants to open in the city. It boasted an exhibition kitchen and a wood-burning oven and it was the toast of the town. One evening in the fall of 1981, Ed was approached by this young woman who had been eating his pizza and watching him cook. She introduced herself as Barbara, and the shy guy over in the booth was her boyfriend, Wolfgang. Right there on the restaurant floor, she asked him if he might be interested in cooking in her boyfriend’s new restaurant in Los Angeles. The rest is, as they say, history.
Spago, pizzeria of the stars…
From the moment Spago’s opened in January of 1982, its winning fusion of the hippest restaurant concepts and cutting edge cuisine, were destined for success. The cooking team was made up of the brightest of the rising California culinary stars: Executive Chef-owner: Wolfgang Puck, Chef de Cuisine: Mark Peel, Pastry Chef: Nancy Silverton, and Pizza Guy: Ed LaDou.
From the very start, Puck turned LaDou loose on the pizza station. Ed was responsible for all of the pizzas, calzones and daily specials. At first, everyone shared the creative team synergy and worked together while blazing the uncharted territory of California cuisine. However, the dish that was propelled to the forefront of the culinary buzz surrounding Spago’s was the pizza. Everyone was crazy about it. The press couldn’t stop raving about it, food magazines featured photo spreads of the new pizzas, and everyone wanted to try them.
At Spago’s, nothing was too expensive or outrageous to go on pizza. LaDou developed pizzas using luxury ingredients like smoked salmon and caviar, and exotic ingredients like duck and tiger prawns. He had an entire collection of pristine baby vegetables and garden fresh produce to work with. For heartier flavors, there were ethnic sausages like chorizo, linguisa, lamb sausage and andouille, and there were also wonderful imported Italian ingredients like Parmigiano Reggiano, sun-dried tomatoes, prosciutto, salami and olives. LaDou experimented with various ethnic cuisines: American, Middle Eastern, Greek, Thai and Mexican, to name a few. Ed drew from an extensive palette of ingredients and world cuisines to create pizzas that no one had imagined before.
Catch’ in the wave
The stint at Spago’s was very influential, but short-lived. After he left Spago’s, LaDou conducted pizza cooking classes and consulted on several projects, he also met up with Flax and Rosenfield of CPK fame before they opened their first restaurant, but did not become part of the opening team. He was brought in at the last moment when the Neapolitan pizzaiolo they’d hired jumped back to Naples two weeks before the store was about to open. LaDou redesigned the facility, bringing in a fresh pasta machine and enlarging the pizza station. He knocked out a menu featuring salads, pastas and pizzas, and they opened on time.
California pizza for the masses
During his short, but productive time at CPK, LaDou would create some of the most enduring pizza icons that are still on their menu today: the BBQ Chicken Pizza, the Spicy Thai Chicken Pizza and the Mexican Pizza. No one outside of the BBQ belt had ever thought of putting BBQ on pizza, spicy peanut sauce and crispy Asian vegetables was completely off the hook, and topping pizza with Mexican street food was stretching the pizza envelope to the limit. LaDou wanted pizza to come out of the shadows, and to be taken seriously. CPK surely pushed the concept of pizza out of the shadows and it took the concept of non-traditional and inventive pizza to the masses. Ed’s goal was to create pizza that would gain serious culinary attention; he was less interested in creating a trend, than in establishing a culinary form.
Ed’s dream cuisine
After a couple more years of consulting and teaching, Ed opened his own place tucked into the out of the way Laurel Canyon section of Los Angeles. LaDou’s Caioti Café became an instant hit. Finally, Ed could be the king of his kitchen and master of his own destiny. Nearly 20 years and two locations later, Ed is still at it.
At Caioti Café, pizza is the star. The menu features four different styles of pizza, all made from the same dough, but handled and topped differently. The menu categories are broken down into: New World Pizza, Old World Pizza, Pizza Antigua and New York Pizza. I got an up close and personal lesson from Ed as he prepared his choice from each category.
The kitchen at Caioti is quite small and compact. There are no state of the art ovens or fancy equipment, just a mixer, a double deck oven and a compact turnout area. One person can work the whole line during non-busy times, and a second cook rounds out busier meal periods. Everything is within a short reach. This helps keep labor costs down while still maintaining a high level of quality.
As Ed starts to make the pizzas, he explains that for each different style, the dough is handled in a completely different manner and that accounts for the varied effects he’s able to get with his crusts. The first pizza he pats out is the Pizza Bianco of the “Antigua” style, which is somewhere between a focaccia and pizza. For this pizza, Ed uses his fingertips to dimple the dough on the table to less than a half inch thick. The dimpling creates uneven areas in the dough, which will offer varying textures in the finished crust; some areas will be crispy and others will be chewy. The topping is inspired by something the Roman Legions would have baked on their shields: marrow, goat cheese and flax seeds. I know it sounds weird, but it is a delicious combination of crispy, chewy dough that is almost buttery in richness because of the marrow.
The second Old World style pie he whipped out, was also dimpled and stretched on the table, but this crust was quickly finished with a few hand stretches, which opened out the dough to a thinner and wider diameter. Once again the dimpling would create a slightly uneven texture experience, but a lighter and crisper overall effect than the Antigua style. For the topping, he chose the Salsiccia with Italian sausage, mushrooms, Gorgonzola, Mozzarella latte, fresh basil and pine nuts. Both of the Antigua styles of pizza are further enriched by a generous brushing of olive oil.
The crust that started it all
The third variation calls for a short time of opening the dough on the table and hand tossing it to finish. This is the type of pizza crust that LaDou is most famous for; a light and crisp crust that has a hint of sweetness to it. The sweetness comes out during this treatment because the crust is not brushed with olive oil before baking. The New World topping he chose was the Sunchoke, which is a combination of sunchoke, (a cross between an artichoke heart and a potato) apple wood smoked bacon, roasted red peppers, fresh dill and Mozzarella.
New York pizza via LA
The last variation was the dough pressed out with an ample rim and stretched thinner in the center. The handling was very traditional. The pie was sauced with a seasoned red sauce, topped with mozzarella and generous amounts of pepperoni.
I was impressed with the hand techniques involved with creating the various styles of pizza and all of the variety of flavors and textures Ed was able to obtain. This type of product could never be produced with a sheeter or a dough press. The pizza cooks at Caioti must master the hand techniques of all these pies, but that’s part of the craft, it’s something they can be proud of.
Contemporary classic pizza
LaDou maintains some of the classic California icons that he created, like the Barbecue Chicken pizza of CPK and the Lamb Sausage pizza from Spago days, but he’s also added some new twists to classics. The Buffalo pizza, with ground American Bison, caramelized onions, Frank’s Hot Sauce, Mozzarella and Romano, pays homage to big American flavors. Another nod to big American flavors is the Rockefeller, with oysters, shrimp, spinach, gruyere, roasted peppers, bread crumbs and mozzarella. Only in LA could you offer a pizza called Gribenes and Shmaltz, that consists of smoked chicken, onion, celery, carrot, parsley, dill, Mozzarella and chicken cracklings.
Ed’s style surely has matured, but in terms of searching out ingredients, flavor combinations and textures, his palate continues to flourish. His pizza selection offers the same 10 toppings of any other pizzeria, but here are 10 from Caioti, that have not yet become standard topping options: American bison, Frank’s hot sauce, sunchokes, gribenes, shmaltz, sea salt, marrow, flax seed, balsamic vinegar and truffle oil. Ed shows us that one can expect the unexpected even in the smallest of pizza joints. This is what has set his place apart from all of the others and has worked for him over the last 20 years.
No longer so concerned with making a big critical statement, Ed has found that there is a lot more to life. Especially after the birth of his daughter, Cassidy-Rose, Ed has settled into a comfortable groove, “I like my life-style; I don’t want to change it.” As for his future, Ed has several options: “I’m on the cusp of what I’m going to do. I’m strongly considering moving to another part of California or just retiring altogether.”
The legacy of Ed LaDou
“My personal history has been in bringing pizza into the realm of chefs and of serious food.” And to that I would add the legacy of Ed LaDou has significantly enlightened the role of pizza as an “American culinary form.”
Most operators would dream of the popularity that Ed LaDou’s “The Salad” has garnered him over the last 13 years, and while he’s mellowed about the “phenomenon” as he calls it, the runaway success of the dish has been like a double-edged sword. When Caioti Café became an overnight sensation, not for the pizza, but for “The Salad,” Ed had no idea of what he would be in for.
In 1993, Caioti Café had built a solid reputation and was very popular. But the course of events that was about to hit was completely unpredictable. One day, three women, who had been in the same birthing class, came into the café with their babies for lunch. Over the meal, they found that they had shared a common experience: they each had eaten “The Salad”, just before their labor came on. They concluded that “The Salad” must have labor-inducing qualities. Obviously they thought their discovery was of consequence because they contacted the Los Angeles Times about it, the Times ran a story on “The Maternity” salad and the whole thing snowballed from there.
Overnight, Caioti went from a romantic little enclave that was a popular date night destination to a scene out of a Chuck E Cheese unit. The place was filled with high chairs, booster seats, screaming babies and toddlers writhing on the floor. Typically, a group of people would accompany a pregnant woman and watch while she would eat “The Salad,” they did not order food, and took up the space of those who would. At first, it was novel, but very soon, the attention became over-whelming. To make matters worse, it wasn’t bringing in more sales, and it was turning off the regular clientele.
Maternity Salad Blues
If there ever was a case for misguided notoriety, the maternity salad fits the bill. Ed wistfully recalls, “It was kind of like being known for having a third nipple or something.” Ed attempted to discourage this new clientele by doing away with high chairs and booster seats, and to make the place as least kid friendly as possible. Unfortunately, in the end, the maternity salad drove off his regulars and was not building the right kind of customer base to support the type of restaurant that he’d worked so hard to create. The other forces at work in the equation were that the place was open for dinner only, and had no other means of meal period expansion. When the numbers no longer added up, and labor, overhead and location no longer made sense, LaDou decided to move.
Caioti Café Redux
Ed selected a much more appropriate location for the new place; smack in the middle of a neighborhood of young families. He was also able to expand his meal periods by adding lunch and brunch. The second store was smaller and better designed than the first, which meant lower rent costs and less labor needed to work it. And best of all, it was perfect for all of the pregnant women and their families who continued to stream in. In the new location, booster seats and high chairs were welcomed and Ed was better able to build upon the clientele of expectant moms, with family in tow.
Moving to another location may seem drastic, but, sometimes it’s best to cut one’s losses. Ed knew he had a good concept and a great product, but his market changed. He could have died a slow death if he chose to stick it out in the Laurel Canyon store, but instead, he looked at what he had and relocated it all into a more appropriate market. Once he did that, everything changed.
The Phenomenon has legs
It is quite remarkable that the maternity salad thing has gone on for over 13 years, and still continues today. The salad’s mythic reputation, now a permanent part of the LA scene, has attained landmark status. It is included in guide books and continues to draw in expectant moms from near and far. Caioti has a virtual library of baby journals that are filled with entries from thousands of women hoping “The Salad” will work for them. The journals give the myth some substance and are a terrific marketing tool.
Ed has been thinking of exploiting the salad game by producing the “secret” dressing on a commercial level. He sells boutique bottles of it at the store, but now wants to take it to the supermarket shelf. If he can successfully get the dressing produced and then distributed, the myth of the maternity dressing for “The Salad” could reach a national market. Meanwhile, a fresh crop of expectant mothers are still coming in every day, in the hope of delivering soon. Who knew that a simple salad of Romaine, Watercress, Walnuts and Gorgonzola Cheese with Balsamic Vinaigrette could have such secret powers.