Ed LaDou facts for kids

Ed LaDou (born October 9, 1955 – died December 27, 2007) was an American pizza chef. He is famous for making California-style pizzas popular. These pizzas often had unusual and fancy toppings. Ed LaDou was the very first pizza chef at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant, Spago, in Los Angeles. He also created the first menu for the well-known restaurant chain, California Pizza Kitchen.

The idea of California-style pizza started with Alice Waters at her restaurant, Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, California. She was the first to put strange and exciting toppings on pizzas cooked in a wood-burning oven. But Ed LaDou played a huge part in making these kinds of pizzas famous and loved by many. He was known for using very different ingredients, like duck breast and hoisin sauce or barbecue chicken, which were very new for pizza at the time.

Early Life and First Jobs

Ed LaDou was born on October 9, 1955, at McChord Air Force Base in Washington state. His father, Edward M. LaDou, was a United States Air Force pilot. His mother's name is Patricia Gallinetti. Ed grew up partly in Los Altos, California. He started working in a restaurant when he was still in high school.

Becoming a Pizza Master

By the mid-1970s, LaDou was working as a chef in San Francisco. He became known for making pizzas in new and exciting ways. Customers often loved his creative ideas. One day, the famous chef Wolfgang Puck was eating at a restaurant called Prego, where LaDou worked. Puck tried one of LaDou's pizzas, which had ricotta cheese, red peppers, pâté, and mustard on it. Puck was so impressed that he immediately offered LaDou a job at his new restaurant, Spago, in Los Angeles. Spago was not even open yet!

Spago and New Flavors

Spago opened in January 1982, and Ed LaDou was its first pizza chef. Wolfgang Puck gave LaDou the freedom to choose his own toppings and recipes. The first menu at Spago included pizzas with duck sausage or smoked salmon. LaDou once said that working at Spago was like being an artist who usually used only 10 colors, but then got to use 300! LaDou's pizzas were incredibly popular. It became very hard to get a reservation at Spago because everyone wanted to try his unique pizzas.

Creating California Pizza Kitchen's Menu

Later, Larry Flax, who helped start the California Pizza Kitchen, asked LaDou for help. Flax and his friend Rick Rosenfield were both attorneys and wanted to open a new pizza place. Flax had even taken a pizza-making class with LaDou before. LaDou agreed to help create the first menu for the California Pizza Kitchen in 1985. He developed many of their first recipes, including their famous barbecue chicken pizza. The California Pizza Kitchen became a huge success. Today, it has restaurants all over the United States and even in other countries.

After helping to create the menu, LaDou left California Pizza Kitchen. He later opened his own restaurant called Caioti. It first opened in Laurel Canyon, then moved to the Sunset Strip, and is now in Studio City, California.

In 2005, the Smithsonian Institution invited LaDou to show off his amazing pizza-making skills. He demonstrated his techniques at the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington D.C..

His Legacy

Ed LaDou passed away from cancer on December 27, 2007, at the age of 52. He was at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, with his wife, Carrie LaDou, and their daughter, Cassidy Rose. Ed LaDou is remembered as a creative chef who changed how people thought about pizza, making it a canvas for exciting and new flavors.