Ed LaDou, 52; chef pioneered gourmet pizza revolution

LaDou, who later opened his own restaurant, Caioti, died of cancer Dec. 27 at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica. He was 52.

"Ed really set the tone for the pizza," said Mark Peel, a former chef at Spago who now owns Campanile in Los Angeles. "Wolfgang had a great sense of taste, but he was not a pizza maker by any means. Ed was highly skilled, fast and clean; he was an intelligent guy who made a great, great crust. There are people who have built empires on less."

By most accounts, the history of the California pizza begins with Alice Waters and her Chez Panisse in Berkeley, with its wood-burning pizza oven and exotic toppings. But LaDou was a player in some of pizza's key innovations.

LaDou was born Oct. 9, 1955, at McChord Air Force Base in Washington state, the son of a pilot. He spent part of his childhood in Los Altos, Calif., and worked his first restaurant jobs while still in high school, said his mother, Patricia Gallinetti of Moss Beach, Calif.

By the mid-1970s LaDou was working at restaurants in San Francisco, where he was known as an experienced pizza maker given to experimentation, topping pizzas with items such as eggplant and clams. Such experimentation was not always welcomed by his bosses, David Kamp wrote in his 2006 book, "The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation," but it appealed to diners, including one who would change the future of pizza.

One day while dining at Prego in San Francisco, Puck tried a LaDou original -- pizza topped with ricotta cheese, red peppers, pâté and mustard. Puck offered him a job in his yet-unopened restaurant in Los Angeles.

In January 1982, Spago opened with LaDou as pizza chef, carrying out the visions of Puck. There was pizza topped with smoked salmon and pizza topped with duck sausage. Puck also allowed LaDou to select toppings.