Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck hails from Austria but still possesses a Southern accent.
Just ask him, as TT did this week during Puck’s Charlotte visit to putter around the kitchen at his newly opened Wolfgang Puck Pizza Bar at Phillips Place, a prototype for national expansion. “With the accent, yes?” Puck said of possible Tar Heel State roots, just before dismissing them. “I’m from southern Austria, so we have something in common. I tell everybody, when they’re from Alabama, ‘You know, we have the same accent.’ Where I come from, if somebody comes from Vienna, the capital, they say, ‘Oh, my God, this Southern-style accent is terrible, the way they speak.’ We almost have our own language.”
Now, of course, all he needs is a swig of sweet tea for true Dixie credibility. See next week’s issue for much more from Puck on doing business in Charlotte and beyond.