Which pizza style is associated with chefs Ed LaDou and Wolfgang Puck?

California-style pizza is the style associated with chefs Ed LaDou and Wolfgang Puck.

The style emerged in California around 1980, drawing on thin-crust pizza but replacing strictly traditional toppings with ingredients associated with California cuisine. LaDou experimented with combinations such as goat cheese, prosciutto, truffles, pâté, mustard and roasted vegetables. At Prego in San Francisco, one of his unusual pizzas impressed Wolfgang Puck, who hired him for the opening of Spago in Los Angeles.

Puck helped popularize the style nationally, while LaDou later developed the original menu for California Pizza Kitchen. The style is often confused with a single fixed recipe, but it is better understood as a culinary approach: a relatively thin base paired with inventive, frequently upscale toppings. Alice Waters and chefs at Chez Panisse also played an important role in the style’s early development, so LaDou is not the only figure connected with its origins.