Located in the heart of Beverly Hills along Canon Drive, Spago is the flagship restaurant of the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group. The sleek and simple design of the restaurant enhances the iconic, market-driven menus and exceptional level of service for which the restaurant is best known. Guests can choose from a seasonal a la carte menu, or explore the best of the west with the chefs’ multi-course California Tasting Menu, reads the website.
Spago's signature smoked salmon pizza has been on the menu of the original Spago in Beverly Hills since 1982 when it was created. The Applewood Smoked Salmon Pizza comes with Dill Creme Fraiche, Chives and Salmon Roe. All for $42, at the time of this writing. That mix of hot and cold, crisp and creamy, and sweet and savory has made it iconic.
Puck invented this famous dish one night when actress Joan Collins ordered smoked salmon with brioche, and the restaurant was out of bread. He replaced the bread with pizza crust and created an elevated version of a bagel and lox.
The current incarnation features whole salmon that is butchered by Spago’s chefs and seasoned with cloves, bay leaves, parsley, thyme and brown sugar. The cured salmon is then smoked in-house, the whole process taking up to four days. Cooked to order, the pizza dough is fired with shaved dried onion and olive oil until the crust is crackling before being covered with crème fraîche infused with dill, shallots, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and crowned with smoked salmon slices and caviar, according to the Michelin guide.
I'm already a big fan of bagel and lox, so this just stepped it up a notch for me. It was the most fresh, most flavorful version of this meal that I've had. I know it's not a traditional pizza and the texture may be tough for some folks, but this small taste of luxury for me was one of the highlights of my trip.
Aside from the pizza, we did have a few other bites.
We had complimentary bread for the table, which I certainly didn't need. But I definitely enjoyed the sourdouche and brioche and cracker. Fresh, soft, all the good things.
A regular salted butter and specialty seaweed butter, which were the perfect temperature to be perfectly spread. It's a pet peeve when you have cold butter that cannot spread.
It was a bucket-list experience for me and fortunately, the expectations of the food lived up to that.
Grade: A
