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California pizza pioneer LaDou succumbs to cancer

California pizza pioneer LaDou succumbs to cancer

SANTA MONICA Calif. Ed LaDou, who dazzled the culinary world with what would become known as California gourmet pizza, died of cancer Dec. 27 at a Santa Monica hospital. He was 52.

LaDou first rose to prominence for the innovative pizzas he prepared at Wolfgang Puck’s original Spago in Los Angeles. He later helped to design the menu for California Pizza Kitchen, the Los Angeles-based casual-dining chain that introduced such specialties as barbecue chicken pizza to the mass market. His much-imitated wood-fired pies, featuring ingredients like duck breast and hoisin sauce or smoked salmon, would be imitated throughout the world.

LaDou started experimenting with pizza toppings in the mid-1970s at such San Francisco restaurants as Prego, where Puck reportedly first tried one of his future employee’s creations: a pizza topped with ricotta cheese, red peppers, pate and mustard.

When Spago opened in 1982, Puck hired LaDou as the pizza chef, and the restaurant soon became a national sensation.

Afew years later, lawyers Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax, co-founders of California Pizza Kitchen chain, hired LaDou to develop their pizza line. Among LaDou’s creations was the chain’s perennial best-seller, the barbecue chicken pizza.

Later LaDou opened his own pizzeria, Caioti, in Los Angeles.

LaDou is survived by wife, Carrie, and their daughter, Cassidy Rose.

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