At the 98th Academy Awards, while all the stars snagged one golden trophy after another, our eyes were (for all the good reasons) glued to the food.
The Oscars after-party has always been renowned for its extensive menus, over-the-top presentation, endless rounds of champagne, and desserts dusted in 24-K gold. And this year’s fare, helmed by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, was no different.
Extravagant, extra, and indulgent, the table featured everything one would imagine a royal, Great Gatsby-like dinner to feature and then some more. Brought to life by Puck and his team of 75 chefs, 45 pastry chefs, and 325 front-of-house staff and managers on March 16, 2026, the spread was no less than a real-world rendition of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Served at the Governor’s Ball, this was the 32nd consecutive year that Puck’s team had created, served, and carried the Oscars after-party in full splendour.
A Closer Look At The Menu
Featuring 70 different dishes, the menu was designed to cater to the 1,500 very glamorous guests, fresh off the red carpet, and was no less than the infamous spread at the Great Hall we all know and love from Harry Potter.
Among the standouts were a live izakaya station, serving Japanese-style small plates, and an Italian gelato machine churning out fresh scoops on demand as the night wore on. You best believe Oscars-shaped smoked salmon topped with caviar were the star of the show!
And then, of course, there was the gold—yes, real gold. Around 2,000 mini chocolate Oscar statuettes were dusted using a whopping two gallons of 24-carat liquid gold, because subtlety isn’t exactly the theme of the Oscars.
According to Chef Puck, the celebrities tend to enjoy comfort favourites far more than fancier, experimental dishes. “Comfort food is always the people’s favourite food, like our chicken pot pie, smoked salmon pizza, our macaroni and cheese, or the mini Wagyu burgers,” he shared at a preview event earlier in the week.
Hence, the menu leaned heavily into homemade pizzas (600 of them!) and some of the chef’s exciting new dishes like pommes darphin & caviar, spring gazpacho, confit duck potstickers, and about 3,000 pieces of artichoke agnolotti. Meanwhile, some favourites that make yearly appearances at the Oscars table also included smoked salmon, Oscar lavosh, chicken pot pie and truffle mac & cheese. As far as dessert is concerned, apart from the gold-drenched chocolate Oscars, there was also Puck’s mother’s delicious apple strudel for a homely, personal touch to the lavish menu.
And because Hollywood loves a crisp flute of champs, about 1,700 bottles of champagne—Piper-Heidsieck— were popped through the night, thanks to the many toasts and cheers that had to be made (hello, Oscar winners). On the drinks front, the menu also featured Clarendelle and Domaine Clarence Dillon for fine wine and a bespoke tequila-based cocktail menu designed by mixologists Charles Joly and Lorenzo Antinori, featuring Don Julio exclusively.
Wolfgang Puck on What Went on Behind the Scenes
For bringing to life a dinner as brilliant as this one, Puck’s team used ingredients in quantities we only once read about while solving math problems. Yes, the scale of operation is truly that staggering.
According to the chef’s estimates, the kitchen utilised approximately 14 kg of Kaluga caviar, 91 kg of Nishiki rice, 91 kg of dry-aged ribeye, 136 kg of house-smoked salmon, 227 kg of wild mushrooms, 81 kg of wagyu beef, 45 kg of ahi tuna, and 181 kg of cheese. When they said it takes a world and a half, they clearly weren’t kidding.
What’s important to note is that these were among the highest-quality ingredients of their kind, sourced from around the world. From Mizakaya, Japan and Hawaii, to New York and even the Antarctic, there’s no corner of the world that Puck’s team didn’t hit to gather these high-end ingredients.
Puck and his team also worked with $4,000 of black truffles and $24,000 of fish eggs alone! All this translated into roughly 30,000 dishes plated by the chef’s team throughout the night.
Perhaps the best part of the dinner is the fact that none of it really goes to waste—and I don’t mean the diners wipe all the plates clean. According to the chef, all leftover food is distributed to Skid Row, an area of Los Angeles inhabited primarily by the homeless.
The Information
The 98th Academy Awards took place on March 16, 2026, at 4:30 AM Indian Standard Time (IST) and March 15, 2026, at 7:00 PM Eastern Time (ET), at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.
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