What's your guilty pleasure?
Coffee macaroons. It all started when I used to work at Maxim's in Paris and discovered Ladurée on the Champs-Elysée.
What was your favourite family meal?
Vienna schnitzel with mashed potato. I grew up in southern Austria and we used to have it for Sunday lunch. I loved it and would save half of it for a sandwich later.
And what can you cook in ten minutes?
A lot. Courgette with two pieces of Alaskan salmon — I'd do you that in eight minutes.
Best meal you've ever eaten?
It was at the Fat Duck. I had sashimi and wore earphones playing the sound of the ocean. The menu was so well put together.
What makes a great restaurant?
Great food, service and a wonderful environment — and the customers of course, who are a big part of it. They help create the environment.
What inspired you?
My mother was a chef in a resort hotel in Austria and I used to spend time with the pastry chef when I was 12. At 14, I became a chef apprentice and that was it.
And if you weren't a chef...
I'd be a painter or a sculptor. I'd love to create like Henry Moore. But whatever you do you have to find your own style.
Wolfgang Puck's 'Cut at 45 Park Lane' opens next month at The Dorchester Collection's 45 Park Lane.
