Ed LaDou

Edward M. LaDou, III (October 9, 1955 – December 27, 2007) was an American pizza chef, who is credited with popularizing gourmet California-style pizzas. Ed LaDou was the first pizza chef at Wolfgang Puck's Spago restaurant in Los Angeles. He also developed the first menu for the American chain restaurant California Pizza Kitchen. Waters was the first to create pizzas with exotic and unusual toppings which were cooked in a wood-burning pizza oven. He gained a reputation as an experimental pizza maker, which often made him popular with his customers, but sometimes clashed with the ideas of the owners of the restaurants in which he worked. LaDou was working at a restaurant called Prego, when he was discovered by chef Wolfgang Puck, who was eating at the restaurant. and later a Caioti Pizza Cafe restaurant on the Sunset Strip with Carol Saiz, before moving to its current location in Studio City, California. The Caioti Pizza Cafe is known for the garlic knots, the smoked salmon pizza (like the one from Spago), the barbecue chicken pizza (like the one from California Pizza Kitchen), "Cajun pizza", and "Rockefeller Pizza". It is called, "The Salad" and contains romaine lettuce, watercress, walnuts, and gorgonzola, tossed with a "magical" balsamic dressing. The dressing is so popular it is sold by the bottle. Hillary Duff, Jinger Duggar, and other celebrities have attempted to use the salad to induce labor.

Death Ed LaDou died of cancer at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, on December 27, 2007, at the age of 52. He was surrounded by his wife, Carrie LaDou, and their daughter, Cassidy Rose.