When it’s Wolfgang Puck’s name lighting up your screen, you take the call, no matter what time it is. Elliott Grover knows this. “He’s so passionate, he calls every evening, saying: ‘Elliott! How’s it going?’ And I’m like: ‘Wolfgang, it’s 2am!’”
Grover is the executive chef of Cut at 45 Park Lane, Puck’s London outpost. But right at this moment, he’s cooking in Hollywood as he helps Puck cater for the Oscar winners. For Puck, it’s all part of the annual routine — America’s most famous chef has done it for nearly 30 years — but it’s virgin territory for Grover. The pair will be at the Governor’s Ball. It’s the big one, the evening’s after-party, where sideboards end up strewn with wine glasses and golden statuettes and it swiftly becomes impossible to really decide who’s the most famous person in the room. And Grover, a 31-year-old with a strong Cornish lilt, will be there in the room, plating up. Not bad going for someone who’s been in the gig less than a year.
If it sounds like the set-up for a joke, that’s because it started as one. “Literally within two weeks of me being here, I’d said to Wolfgang: ‘Can I come to the Oscars?’ But I said it in jest,” remembers Grover, grinning. “And he said: ‘What an amazing idea! We can do that.’”
Grover had already learnt not to be surprised by anything Puck did — the first time they ever met, Grover was on a hotel driveway when Puck pulled in a stretched Hummer and somehow just knew who he was. But the rules of play were strict — “Wolfgang said: ‘you can do one (!) dish. I don’t want it interfering’” — but the great chef soon changed his mind; next Grover would look after two, and then it was three. Terrifying or a great honour? The latter, Grover says. “Because there’s people who’ve been in that company 30 years that he won’t let go.”
Puck’s way of working is to set up stalls around the room offering all sorts to eat — if there’s any group that can be relied on for fussy dietaries, it’s the Hollywood A-list — and Grover will serve up British classics to those there without their personal trainer. Puck is big on Britain: “He wants England flags everywhere,” says Grover, with the subtlest of sideways glances.
Grover’s menu includes the “one dish” that started it all off — “fish n’ chip cones, haddock with the skin on, curry sauce, tartare, chips, all the trimmings” — as well as sherry trifle. But the big one will be “a beef Wellington. Now, fish and chips we can do well, but I feel beef Wellington is our luxury.”
Grover and about a dozen chefs will be there serving it slice by slice, having prepped it all by hand on Friday; any secrets? “Chop the mushrooms, don’t blend them, otherwise they bleed out and go black. Oh, and a splash of Madeira.” They’re estimating 20 enormous Wellingtons should get the job done.
For the Londoners not invited to the Dolby Theatre for the big night, there is at least some consolation; Grover’s team are presently serving his menu, alongside Puck’s most famous Oscars dish — the chicken pot pie — at the Park Lane Cut. Grover says he’s been paying just as much attention to the food here as he has to his Hollywood preparations. He has to — Wolfgang’s been calling in on it every night.
