Humble roots yield success

Talk about working your way up: Eduardo Perez, executive chef at Wolfgang Puck's Trattoria del Lupo at Mandalay Bay, got his start with Puck's organization as a gardener.

That was in 1986, shortly after he arrived from his native Guatemala.

"Coming from a foreign country, you don't know what you're going to do here," said Perez, who was 18 at the time. "I was just looking for a job. Lucky for me, I got a job at Spago."

He came here to join his mother, who had a friend who was a prep cook at the original Spago in West Hollywood, Calif. There was an opening, it seemed -- for a gardener, tending the herbs and flowers.

Perez was an affable type, and a hard worker. He became friendly with the chef and many of the cooks who would move onward and upward with Puck's organization.

After about six months, Perez took on a second job as a dishwasher, while keeping his day job tending the plants. In another six months, an opportunity arose for him to work with food. It was on the lowest rung in the kitchen, but would serve as the beginning of an informal apprenticeship.

"I went through the whole process," Perez said. "Doing prep, helping pastry, butchering, making bread."

More time passed, maybe about a year. Then the opportunity arose for Perez to become a line cook.

"The chef said, 'Do you want to make pizza?' " he remembered. "Back then it was very hard for anybody to go up the ladder. That was the opportunity that I got. That was my first chance to really go into the kitchen and cook."

And so, grateful for the chance, he took the job. And then the chef gave him the news: "OK, you're going to be making pizza for the next two years."

"I thought he was joking," Perez said.

He wasn't.

"I wanted to do something else; I wanted to learn. Just doing pizzas? I already knew how to make pizzas."

But then, following the rhythm of the restaurant world, that chef left. The sous chef was promoted to chef and moved Perez -- at last! -- to pantry, where he would make the salads, salad dressings and appetizers. About five months passed.

"I moved to pasta finally," Perez said. "That was what I wanted to do. To me, cooking pasta is a big thing."

But it's always wise to be careful what you ask for. There was a little problem with the pasta station: Perez was good at it.

"I got stuck there" for about a year and a half, he said. "They didn't want to move me anywhere else. I did that for a long time and I got tired of doing it. I kept asking the chef, 'Give me an opportunity to learn more, to do something else.' "

His hopes were answered in the form of Joseph Manzare, who was the chef at Puck's Granita in Malibu, Calif., and needed help. Perez knew Manzare from Spago, where Manzare had taught him to butcher back when he was a dishwasher. He worked for Manzare through the summer, and then Manzare told him: "Don't go back to Spago. Work here, with me, and I'm going to let you do what you want to do."

But ...

"The chef at Spago was saying, 'Come back to Spago, and I'm going to let you do what you want to do.' "

And so he went back. And ...

"Again I got stuck in pasta."

But Manzare would come to the rescue again. The Spago chef left, and Manzare replaced him. And that was when Perez finally began to break into the upper ranks of the kitchen.

The grill, Perez said, was the exclusive domain of the chef. "When you work the grill you're in control of the whole kitchen." One day, Perez made a joke: "I said, 'Joseph, today, how about if you work pasta and I work the grill?' He said, 'OK, let's do it.' From then on, I would work the grill every Sunday, and he would work pasta."

Manzare doesn't remember what day of the week the arrangement represented, but he remembers that it wasn't a failed experiment.

"He was very proud to be doing that, being the main chef in charge of the grill and the main station, which is where the head chef always works," said Manzare, who now owns San Francisco restaurants Globe, Zuppa, Pescheria and Tres Agaves. "He was great. He had all of the qualifications. He's very focused. He enjoys what he does. He's a great cook -- great chef, now."

The arrangement had Puck's blessing as well. Perez said he remembers Puck coming into the kitchen and joking: "Eduardo, is Joseph OK over there? Does he need you?"

And eventually the opportunity arose for Perez to run his own kitchen. When the Wolfgang Puck Cafe opened at the MGM Grand in late 1993, Perez was named sous chef. But since the restaurant didn't have a chef, Perez filled that role.

Eight months later, the company sent him to Mexico to open a Spago there. When he returned, his job at the MGM Grand had been filled -- not that that was a problem, because he was wanted at Spago Las Vegas.

David Robins, managing partner of corporate operations for the Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group in Las Vegas, said that at the time, cafes were under the purview of the Wolfgang Puck Food Co., which now runs small franchisee restaurants and airport express operations.

"We hit it off," Robins said of Perez, "and I fortunately stole him from our lovely sister company to come work for me. He moved over to Spago, and I think the rest is history."

When Perez first went to Spago Las Vegas, it was as banquet chef. Then he ran the cafe during lunch, and then eventually worked in Spago itself, first as a co-executive sous chef, then chef de cuisine.

"Obviously it was with my support, but with Eddie really being the backbone of the operation," Robins said. "He's extremely culinarily talented, and hard-working."

And there was an affinity between the two.

"Eddie and I never really had to talk a whole lot," Robins said. "If I told him what I wanted in a dish at 10 o'clock in the morning, at 5 o'clock that evening, it had exactly materialized as I thought. It not only made my job easier, but it's an enjoyable process when you're working with somebody who has the same palate and passion and at the same time the same work ethic."

Along the way, Perez became an associate partner. And then he decided to take the job at Trattoria del Lupo.

"Spago is a monster, and it can kill anybody," he said. "It's a huge restaurant with a lot of responsibilities. There is so much going on every day. For me, it was good because it was a challenge. But I never had time to spend with my (three) kids. David kind of read that in my mind. He said, 'Move to Lupo, you're going to have a better family life over there.' "

To ease the transition, the company sent Perez to Italy for a week. But perhaps they needn't have bothered, because Manzare said Lupo is a perfect fit.

"He had some really great experience doing some great pastas and real Italian dishes," Manzare said. "He's a great pasta chef. It makes you want to eat there now."

Robins has said that he himself is a graduate of the school of hard knocks, and it doesn't escape him that Perez is as well.

"I think that's why we bonded so well," he said. "We both came from tough situations as children, really became adults very quickly in our teenage years. Also coming from a foreign country, he had to deal with becoming part of American society."

Perez conceded that luck played a role in his career -- there was that foot in the door, after all -- but knows that something else meant even more.

"A lot of dedication," he said. "A lot of hard work and passion for what you do. You learn something every day in this field. Wolfgang always said, 'It's easy to get to the top, but it's tough to be on top" and stay there.

"It's a challenge every day when it comes to creating dishes and running the restaurant -- especially now, with all the competition here in town with all these new restaurants. We have to keep on our toes, and keep working hard."

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0474.