If Bourdain was the Sid Vicious of rock star chefs, Puck was the Paul McCartney of his field—a prolific composer of dishes that sang with bold, bright flavors; a people pleaser whose career was remarkably free of scandal.
“The biggest conflict that he has with himself is he didn’t have a good example set for him when he was a kid.
One of the film’s more revealing moments was the origin of Puck’s famous smoked salmon pizza, an improvisation he whipped up for Joan Collins when he ran out of bread to make the actress’s favorite dish: brioche and gravlax with dill cream.
Ruth Reichl says something really interesting in the movie where she thinks one of the reasons takes every opportunity that he can is because he has this feeling that the Cinderella carriage is going to turn back into a pumpkin and that this whole thing is like a dream.
Reichl is one of several food luminaries who sing Puck’s praises in the film, along with the recently departed Mark Peel, who with then significant other Nancy Silverton helped make Spago a mecca of California Cuisine before launching their own landmark of L.A.
All the unscripted food shows are shooting on cinema cameras, often with cinema lenses, and that look has become totally common.