Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004 | 8:17 a.m.
Georg and Eva Paulussen are culturally opposite, but have two things in common: Both were born in small villages, and both lived close to home for the first two decades of their lives.
But thats where the similarities end. Georg had no cooking experience whatsoever during his childhood. But for Eva, cooking is all she remembers.
Despite his lack of exposure to cooking, Georgs dream was always to become a chef. And despite becoming adept at cooking at a young age, all Eva wanted to do was teach.
Ultimately, food is what brought Georg and Eva together, and its what keeps them in business in Las Vegas as the owners/operators of Wild Truffles at 7905 W. Sahara Ave., which they opened 10 months ago.
The Paulussens both have worldwide experience as chefs, and they wanted to use their talents to bring something unique to the desert.
The small, one-room eatery has only three round, elevated tables and three cases, one featuring truffles from Switzerland, another containing freshly prepared sandwiches and salads, and a third displaying chocolate-covered fruits, nuts, marshmallows and pretzels.
Two wood-paneled walls offer a variety of gift baskets that can be filled with a wide array of sweets and trinkets, including biscotti, pistachios, cookies and ceramic bears.
But what sets Wild Truffles apart from other delis is its catering business. Georg and Eva are bringing the fine-dining experience customers enjoyed at hotels such as The Venetian and Caesars Palace (two hotels in which Georg has worked) to homes and backyards or, as Georg calls it, "A gourmet restaurant on the go."
Rather than have the food sitting in a steam table or getting cold on a long banquet-style table, the Paulussens use what they call "action stations," in which chefs prepare everything from risotto to wild mushrooms on the spot.
"We cook it right in front of you," Georg said. "It's almost like a cooking class, and the diner is much more actively involved. You don't have to sit for two hours at a table with people you don't know."
Word of mouth has been their main advertising, and the couple have set up more than 100 events in less than eight months. The Paulussens also do site inspections to make sure their decor matches the layout of the houses and yards.
"We're the only ones who provide this in Las Vegas," Georg said. And as long as the work continues to be challenging and rewarding, the couple plan on remaining Las Vegas residents.
Born to do it
Georg was born in Adendorf, Germany, a village of more than 1,500 residents about 10 miles outside of Bonn, in 1965, and feels he was destined to be a chef.
"My mother told me, 'You were born with a wooden spoon in your hand,' " George said.
Eva added, "I've got a picture of him at 15 months old holding a wooden spoon."
"I'm covered with flour," Georg added.
His father, Karl Heinz, is a postal worker for the German parliament, and his mother, Inge, is a homemaker. His younger brother by nearly 10 years, Michael, still lives in Adendorf with his family as a tax consultant.
"I'm the first in the village to see the big, wide world," Georg said. "I never wanted to be anything else but a chef."
Why? That's a mystery, even to Georg.
Although Georg's mother is an adept cook -- her specialties are schnitzel, mashed potatoes and carrots and potato pancakes with creamy green bean soup -- Georg never helped her in the kitchen.
No one in Georg's family worked in the food industry, and he had little to no exposure to the restaurant industry.
"We had no money for restaurants," he said. "We'd go once a year for special occasions, or if Mom or Dad turned 30."
His dream of being a chef certainly wasn't helped by the prevailing mood of his native country, or Europe at large. "It was not a reputable job at that time," he said. "Europe's view was, 'Cooking? What's up with that?' "
But when Georg turned 13, he began a series of "sniffing apprenticeships," in which students visited a variety of businesses to help them in career decisions.
"I would always seek out restaurants, every time," he said.
Seeing the world
When Georg was 15, he began his first restaurant apprenticeship. It lasted three years, a time he describes as "five days of the restaurant, one day of school."
After graduation Georg worked at one restaurant a year in his village until he turned 22. "That's when I decided I wanted to see the wide world."
He took a job on a cruise ship, the MS Berlin, as a chef entremetier (soups, starches and vegetables), and he remembers the experience fondly.
"It was exactly like 'The Love Boat,' " he said. "Germans copy a lot of American TV shows, and a lot of German movie stars traveled on the boat."
He received an education both in long hours -- he worked seven days a week, 16 to 18 hours a day -- and in the world of Scandinavian cuisine.
"The ship went to all the Scandinavian countries," he said. "It showed me all the foods of those regions -- salmons, venisons and much more."
Georg proved a quick study during his early years, and those who worked with him helped him get a plum job at the young age of 23 -- chef saucier at the Hilton International in New York.
"I saw a newspaper ad and immediately applied," he said. "I spoke no English, but based on references I was chosen from 150 applicants."
For the first 18 months Georg prepared meat, fish and chicken and sauces during the day and learned English by night by reading and watching TV.
"The one I really remember watching was the 'Arsenio Hall Show,' " he said. "I also watched a lot of 'Wheel of Fortune.' I learned pronunciation of 'A,' 'B,' and 'Buy a vowel.' "
Within six months Georg had a relatively good command of the language -- which was fortunate, since he was trying to woo Eva, another chef at the restaurant, who spoke no German.
Born into it
Eva was born Eva Hyatt in Islington, a village of approximately 2,000 in the St. Mary Parish of Jamaica (she declined to give her age), and her childhood was spent primarily helping her mother, Ina, run a convenience store that sold locally made products.
"My mother made everything the store sold -- jerk chicken, escovitch fish, desserts like plum pudding and coconut gizzadas (grated and served in a pastry shell)," Eva said. "I was only 6 years old when I started helping, but I remember everything. I figured out how to help out quickly."
Her mother died when she was only 11, and Eva and two of her younger sisters continued to operate the store. Her father, Joseph, was not involved with the store, but still demanded that his daughters continue their educations as well.
"We'd get off from school about 4 p.m. and operate the store until 6 p.m. Then I'd make dinner and we'd do our homework," she said. "We never had restaurants. The closest one was eight miles from our village."
In addition to cooking, Eva developed skills in sewing, fixing her siblings' clothes and creating her own outfits.
When Eva turned 17 she left all that behind and pursued a career as a teacher.
"I'd been cooking for so long I wanted to get away from it for a while," she said.
For the next six years Eva learned to teach by doing at the Hillside All-Age School in St. Mary, the Teacher's Training College, Excelsior High School and the Holy Childhood High School (all in Kingston), teaching physical education, geography and home economics.
During all that time in Jamaica, Eva continued to use her sewing skills for extra money. She eventually made clients of the American Embassy staff and the Coffee Board, and she came highly recommended.
Teaching had lost its luster by the time she left Jamaica at age 24. This time, she wanted to be a designer.
Back to basics
Eva applied to the Fashion Institute of Technology, but didn't immediately hear back, so she took odd jobs in the meantime.
One of those stints was as a waitress at a private catering function.
"I saw what they did and liked it," Eva said.
Realizing her skills in the kitchen could be put to good use, Eva looked for work as a personal chef. For the next four years she served as chef for well-to-do families in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
Wanting to become a professional chef, Eva went to New York Food and Hotel Management at age 28. She excelled in the six months she was there.
"I got straight A's, and I ended up teaching my peers," she said. "I wanted to open my own restaurant, so I took a job as a manager of a Wendy's for 18 months."
After getting management experience on the job, Eva wanted to learn how to cook for thousands. To do that, she would have to work at a hotel. That hotel was the Hilton International in New York, where she also crossed-trained as a pastry chef for 18 months.
It's also where she would meet her future husband.
Eva describes her first meeting with Georg as memorable.
"I got there before him, and the first time I met him was when he came on board," she said. "The first thing he said was, 'How do you do? Nice to meet you,' in a British accent, because that was what he'd learned from European television. Everyone laughed, and he didn't speak for a while after that."
Months later, when Georg's English started to improve, Eva had to get a card and going-away gift for one of Georg's assistants, and she asked him to help her pick a gift out.
During the shopping trip, they had lunch together.
"He asked me if I wanted a 'Jose,' " Eva said, smiling. "I said, 'Is that a Spanish drink?' He meant to say 'rose.' "
Their next "date" came about when the expiration date on Georg's visa was approaching, and he still didn't know enough English to compile a resume. Eva offered to help, and by 1989 they were inseparable.
Eva continued to enjoy success in her field, including helping open a Langham Hilton in London and working as a garde manger (in charge of cold dishes, pates, salads and dressings) at the Essex House in New York. That all came to a halt when she got pregnant in 1991 with their son, Daniel. She's been mostly a stay-at-home mom since.
Up the ladder
All told, Georg was with the Hilton organization for 10 years, and he became successful rapidly.
After working at the International for 18 months, he took a job as sous chef at the Park Lane in London. After 18 months there, the International asked him to come back. He was promoted to executive chef at age 27, the youngest in the company's history up to that point, and was promoted to executive sous chef at the Tokyo Hilton a year later.
During his four years in Japan, Georg helped Hilton open a branch in New Delhi, India, training the executive chef and crew. The experience turned out to be one of the most educational of his life.
"There are people there who don't eat pork or beef, so I had to make sure whoever was preparing it wasn't standing next to someone who might be offended," he said. "That whole experience taught me to be more flexible, and I also learned to cook with water buffalo instead of beef or pork. There's no religion involved."
Who's for desert?
In 1997 Georg accepted a job at Caesars as executive sous chef, and he, Eva and Daniel took to the area immediately.
"Daniel loved the school here," Eva said, referring to the Meadows School.
After 15 months at Caesars, the then-chief operating officer, Mike French, left to become chief operating officer of The Venetian. He took Georg with him, and Georg worked there two years as executive chef.
Because of his performance at Caesars Palace, two former Caesars bigwigs, Paul O'Neil and Ian Reid, recommended Georg to work at the Atlantis in the Bahamas. Georg accepted, and quickly found himself in charge of 800 cooks, 400 stewards and 41 food outlets.
Georg was at the top of his game, but another life change was on the way.
Three years into his job at Atlantis, Georg began experiencing back pain. He went in for an operation, but complications from that surgery required three more procedures. He ended up in the hospital for nearly six weeks, and lost a lot of physical strength as a result.
Eva, who was less than happy with the school system in the Bahamas -- after one year she pulled Daniel out and began home schooling him -- suggested the family return to Las Vegas, where Daniel was happy in school.
Georg, realizing he had amassed an enormous list of fully trained chefs available for on-call jobs during his time in Las Vegas, agreed, and Wild Truffles was born.
Georg cooks at the catering stations, but mostly the work is hired out to a list of more than 60 chefs, with Eva serving as administrative consultant. Their three full-time employees at Wild Truffles are chefs de cuisine Susan Wolfla and Daniel Galan and souf chef Michael Quijano.
Both Georg and Eva miss the traveling that brought them so many friends and experiences, but they are content for the moment to make Las Vegas their home. And with Eva's interest in someday opening her own Jamaican restaurant, the Paulussens might soon be branching out.
"If everything works out, we have no end in sight," Georg said. "I could see us staying here a long time. There's nothing more exciting than Vegas out there."
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