Barbara Lazaroff in the Press — Magazines
Barbara Lazaroff is well known for conception and execution of singularly unique restaurants.
Her innovative concepts and designs have received critical acclaim.
Her projects and business acumen have been featured in many magazines and books.
There have been many articles about Barbara over the years. She has also been highlighted in such magazines as Travel and Leisure, The Carlyle, Metropolitan Home, Wine Spectator, Esquire, GQ, Newsweek, Fortune, Japan Times, Harpers Bazaar, and Vogue (American and European editions).
Here are some magazine articles that we’ve found online or had the opportunity to scan.
Alta quarterly journal online
The Classics of California Cuisine
These 17 seminal restaurants—some over a century old—have shaped the way we eat and continue to spark new trends.
by Michael Bauer
November 11, 2019
Excerpt from the intro:
By visiting these classic restaurants, diners can witness firsthand the ideas that influenced restaurants around the West—and beyond. The oldest has been in business for 170 years and the newest more than 30, which still is considered several lifetimes in the volatile restaurant industry.
Two of the Wolfgang Puck restaurants are listed, excerpts here:
SPAGO – Beverly Hills 1982
…The couple, who have since divorced, were a dynamic duo. Other places may have embraced the idea of an exhibition kitchen, but Lazaroff took it to new heights. She treated the open kitchen like a theatrical stage, complete with lighting that spotlighted the action. …
Like Musso & Frank in its heyday, Spago became the celebrity hangout. It was Puck, more than any other chef, who casualized fine dining.
CHINOIS ON MAIN – Santa Monica 1983
…Puck showed many chefs a more creative path to traditional preparations: cuisine without borders, if you will. … The dining room’s unique design also suggested new ways forward for California cuisine.
This article is live on Altaonline.com.
In case that page is moved, clicking the Alta magazine logo brings up a pdf of the WP pages in a new tab. (It’s 4.5mb.)
Boutique Design
Heros and Mavericks
Barbara Lazaroff is the Glamazon Giver
June 2018
Clicking the Boutique Design magazine cover brings up the full article in a new tab. (It’s 1.6mb.)
Modern Luxury’s Angeleno magazine
Icons of Beverly Hills
April 2017
Clicking the article’s image brings up a readable pdf in a new tab.
Boutique Design:
BD West Expo Review
April 2017
2 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 2-page article in a new tab. (It’s 1mb.)
Angeleno Magazine
Charity & Social Datebook 2017
Barbara Lazaroff
Philanthropist, Restaurateur and Designer
2007
1 page
Clicking the article’s image brings up the article in a new tab. (It’s 882kb.)
Celeb Life:
Passion Without Boundaries
by Claire Sander
Summer 2008
2 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 3-page pdf in new tab.
(It’s 2.8mb.)
VIVmag
Do-Good Foodies
by Ann Wycoff
November/December 2007
9 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 9-page pdf in a new tab. (It’s 1.3mb.)
Robb Report for the luxury lifestyle
Ultimate Home Tour – A Portfolio of Extraordinary Spaces — Children’s Room
Greystone mansion
by Mary E. Nichols
April 2007
4 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 4-page article in a new tab. (It’s 5.6mb.)
WEYE column
Goodbye to Hollywood
What made Spago LA’s ultimate hot spot? A look back as the legendary eatery closes its doors.
April 2001
2 pages
“We had this idea of something that would combine money and looks and a casual attitude,” says Lazaroff, who has designed all of Puck’s restaurants. “You know, I always thought of that image of David Geffen with a baseball cap on backward — that’s what we wanted Spago to embody.”
They succeeded. From the day the restaurant opened its doors in January of 1982 (when 21 Rolls-Royces jockeyed for parking spaces along the Strip), Spago was a hit luring everyone from Billy Wilder, Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, and Audrey Hepburn to David Hockney, Mick Jagger, Joan Didion and Arnold Schwarzenegger and, shortly thereafter, a mighty mob of paparazzi the likes of which no restaurant in Los Angeles had ever seen.
Clicking the article’s image brings up the article in a new tab. (It’s 2.5mb.)
One Spago enough for Wolfgang Puck
by Army Archerd
March 29, 2001
Some of the story of the original Spago. The celebrities customers named in this article are too long to list.
Excerpts:
GOOD MORNING and goodbye Spago — Hollywood, that is. Spago BevHills continues, along with 11 other “fine” Spago restaurants, 48 cafes and other smaller, monickered eateries, and 20 Wolfgang Puck food products including soups, pizzas and entrees. “But one Spago (in L.A.) is enough,” said Wolfie.
…
The 20-year-old Spago on Horn Ave, on the Sunset Strip has grossed $100 million. Investors (limited) got back their $15,000 before one year, noted Barbara, “with interest.”
…
Their restaurant in the Hollywood-Highland building housing the Kodak theater, the new home for the Oscars, will seat 120 and may open in late Fall. The name? “Something with Wolfie’s name included,” Barbara insists.
You can read this article here at Variety.com.
Or click this article preview for an image of the full article.
Restaurant Business
Perfect Vision
RB honors six leaders whose wisdom, dedication and spirit go above and beyond.
by Victor Wishna
March 15, 2000
3 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full article in a new tab. (It’s 1.2mb.)
Interiors magazine
Spago Soars, Spago Beverly Hills
by Michael Webb
July 1998
5 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 5 page article in a new tab. (It’s 1.8mb.)
LUXE: The Art of Luxury Marketing
Barbara Lazaroff Visceral Reality
by Suzy Gershman
1998
3 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full pdf in a new tab. (It’s 1.2mb.)
New Yorker magazine
Puck’s Peak
1997
3 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 3 page article in a new tab. (It’s 2.2mb.)
Town & Country magazine
On the Town
The Spirit of City Living
Spago’s New Space
August 1997
1 page
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full pdf in a new tab. (It’s 1.2mb.)
W Magazine: W At Table
Spago Reborn – Wolfgang’s Garden
April 1997
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 3-page pdf in new tab. (It’s 2.1mb.)
Food Arts magazine
Kitchen Spy – Pacific Overtures
6 page article
May 1997
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 7-page pdf in new tab. (It’s 2.5mb.)
Chain Leader magazine
Winning the Chain Restaurant Game
PUCK
A brand to reckon with
November 1996
2 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 3-page pdf in a new tab. (It’s 800kb.)
People Weekly magazine
Special Romance Issue
The 10 Most Romantic Couples of 1995
February 13, 1995
3 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 2-page article in a new tab. (It’s 1.6mb.)
The Wall Street Journal Magazine of Personal Business
Smart Money Magazine
Me & My Money: The Odd Couple
Chef Wolfgang Puck and his wife agree to disagree about dough.
by Nellie S. Suang
May 1995
3 pages
Excerpt:
Spago was an instant hit when the couple opened it in 1982, and since then their empire has grown to seven high-end restaurants and six casual, moderately priced cafes. In the mid-1980s they introduced a line of frozen pizzas and desserts. Last year the restaurants and Wolfgang Puck Food Co. grossed more than $55 million. …
The incident earned Puck a resounding “I told you so” from his wife. She hates investing in stocks, “Your stock can be meeting quarterly milestones and doing very well,” she says. “Next thing you know, an earthquake hits or something forces the market down, and you lose everything.”…
Puck, it would seem, is almost allergic to the stuff [money]. Lazaroff says he often doesn’t even have $5 for gas and has to borrow a few bucks from a waiter. Long ago he delegates the check-writing and bill-paying chores to Lazaroff.
Clicking the article opens the full article in a new tab.
Tile and Decorative Surfaces magazine
The Business Magazine for the Tile Industry
An American Designs with Italian Ceramic Tile
November 1994
2 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 3 page pdf in a new tab. (It’s 1.3mb.)
Orange Coast magazine
Chef Wolfgang Puck and designing woman Barbara Lazaroff are providing there is no pie-in-the-sky operation.
by Robin Manougian
March 1994
As these inside pages say: It’s hard to imagine that Wolfgang Puck — the man whose name is synonymous with West Hollywood’s wildly successful Spago — almost never became a chef at all.
ELLE Decor magazine
Barbara Lazaroff’s Shower for 35
1992
2 page
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 3-page pdf in a new tab. (It’s 2mb.)
Market Watch
Market Intelligence on the Wine, Spirits & Beer Business
A Decade After Spago Burst Onto The L.A. Scene, Wolfgang Puck Is
Still Cooking
by Jean T. Barrett
April 1992
7 page
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full 8-page scan in a new tab.
Restaurant Hospitality Magazine
Dances with Wolf & Barbara “The Power, The Glory, The Untold Story”
September 1992
Barbara Lazaroff and Wolfgang Puck were featured on the cover in tandem with this feature article.
“Barbara is a dynamic person and she lets everybody know it,” says Bob Krumpe, the savvy West Coast contractor who has built four restaurants for Lazaroff and Puck. “In my opinion, she’s the best designer in the business. She totally immerses herself in her projects — she lives and breathes them. She has a reputation for being tough, but I think that’s unfair because it’s only the unprofessional people or the egomaniacs who have problems with her. When Barbara’s screaming and yelling at us, we know she loves us.”
Restaurant/Hotel Design International
The Magazine for the Hospitality Design Team
Granita: Water Music – A lyrical new restaurant celebrates the sea in light, form, and detail
by M.J. Madigan
March 1992
6 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full article in a new tab. (It’s 1.2mb.)
DesignersWest
The Magazine of Interior Design Excellence
Public Spaces
Eureka! Barbara Lazaroff Strikes Neo-Industrial Gol
edited by Carol Soucek King
November 1990
7 pages
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full article in a new tab. (It’s 4mb.)
Restaurant/Hotel Design International
Bits & Pieces
April 1989
This magazine issue featured Barbara Lazaroff’s design of the restaurant “Shane on the Glen” which was located on Beverly Glen just south of Mulholland.
Restaurants & Institutions magazine
March 4, 1987
Barbara Lazaroff and chef Wolfgang Puck were featured on the cover of this issue in which Spago was rated 60 in the top 100.
DesignersWest
Public, Corporate & Residential Spaces
Barbara Lazaroff’s Fellini-esque Backdrop
by Carol Soucek King
Photography by Penny Wolin with Mark Adams
January 1986
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full article in a new tab. (It’s 3.4mb.)
People magazine
Wolfgang Puck and Barbara Lazaroff Have Cooked Up a Marriage, Not to Mention Two Sizzling Restaurants
by Peggy Brawley
March 26, 1984
Opening paragraphs:
He’s as pleasant and undemanding as bread pudding—soft, mushy and sweet. She’s as tart-tongued and flamboyant as chili sauce—fiery, spicy, outspoken. Not exactly a match made in culinary heaven. “It’s against all the odds,” he says, “but we’re a couple.”
Wolfgang Puck, 34, the mild-mannered celebrity chef and his live-in love, Barbara Lazaroff, 30, a hostess, designer and soon-to-be wife, have sifted together two differing temperaments and talents to create Spago and Chinois, two of L.A.’s hottest restaurants. “Wolfgang was already a great chef,” says L.A. restaurateur Michael McCarty, “but Barbara came along and flipped it all into high gear. She took it down a zany trail.”
Clicking the article’s image brings up the full article in a new tab. (It’s 1.2mb.)
This article is also online at this link at People.com. or here’s an image of the full online article in a new tab. (50kb.)
Sunset: The Magazine of Western Living
When a French restaurant chef gets his hands on an old L.A. bungalow kitchen…
June 1981
Photos by Teri Sandison
Excerpt…
Designer Barbara Lazaroff, Imaginings Interiors Design, started by knocking out the wall between kitchen and dining area.
She replaced it with a cooking peninsula and an overhead arch that divides the space, echoing the rounded doors and passage ways throughout the house. A squared-off door at one end of the kitchen was also restructured to match an archway in the adjoining wall.
Above the sink, rectangular windows were replaced by Stained-glass arches with vegetable motifs by Artistic Adventures. Counters…
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People magazine
Chef Wolfgang Puck’s Got Lots of Dough, Now That His Pizza Place Is Hollywood’s Hot Eatery
by Doris Klein Bacon
July 19, 1982
2 pages
Opening paragraphs:
… The new challenger is, of all things, a pizzeria, plunked down on once fashionable Sunset Strip. Its owner—oh, perfidy!—is none other than Wolfgang Puck, 32, former head chef at Ma Maison.
…But since opening night last January, when 21 Rolls-Royces jockeyed for parking space, Spago (the name is Italian slang for spaghetti) has consistently served a full house of 300 from 6 p.m. to midnight. Reservations are now required three weeks in advance, although there is always room for Henry Winkler when he stops by not for pizza but for marinated fresh tuna with avocado and Maui onions. Ditto for Johnny Carson, though Warren Beatty, when he’s in town, prefers pasta, while Betty Ford and Jacqueline Bisset lean toward grilled chicken with garlic and Italian parsley. On any given night the owner-chef may be seen welcoming the likes of Neil Simon and Marsha Mason, Sean Connery, Michael Douglas, Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, Richard Gere, Christopher Reeve, Lillian Hellman, or Jaclyn Smith and hubby Tony Richmond.
Later:
Since…Wolfgang’s helpmate has been Bronx-born Barbara Lazaroff. The cheerfully informal atmosphere at Spago, with its bleached-oak beams and its open counter separating kitchen from dining room, owes much to Barbara’s design sense, which is remarkable for a 28-year-old holder of degrees in biochemistry and experimental psychology.
Clicking on each page opens a larger image of the page in a new tab.
This article, minus photos, is also online at People.com.