California Pizza Kitchen at Dubai Mall
the bbq chicken pizza is a dubaimoves favorite! - © dubaimoves.com
We’re so glad that California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) has finally come to Dubai! We’ve been big fans of their pasta and pizzas for the last ten years.
For those who are yet to be enlightened, CPK is a causal dining restaurant serving “California-style” pizza, which is a concept popularized by chef Wolfgang Puck at his restaurant Spago in Beverly Hills. These gourmet pizzas have a thin crust with non traditional toppings from California cuisine, such as avacados, sour creme, bbq, goat cheese, artichokes, or eggs. Besides their trademark pizzas, CPK also serves a variety of pastas, salads, and desserts.
CPK was born in 1985 when attorneys Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax started the restaurant and hired the famous pizza chef Ed LaDou from Spago–where he created more than 250 pizza concepts– to design a similar menu for them.
CPK has been expanding rapidy, and luckily for us, the first Middle East franchise has opened at the Dubai Mall. This edition features a large indoor dining area as well as outside seating facing the Dubai Fountain.
The menu carries–more or less–the same items as those in the US. We had to try the Barbeque Chicken pizza as we like to compare the food served here versus what we’ve had in the US. In addition, we ordered the Santa Fe which is a Tex-Mex style pizza with guacamole, sour creme, and diced tomatoes.
Our taste buds were delighted. The BBQ chicken pizza tasted almost exactly like we remember in the US–which means just as yummy. All the ingredients seemed fresh, not canned. And the Santa Fe pizza was a treat too.
Certainly, the kitchen staff are doing their part well. Too bad we can’t say the same for the wait staff who seem somewhat ambivalent, although some do their job better than others.
Nevertheless, the food, value, and location of CPK are winners and we will be back for more.
CPK is managed in the UAE by Gourmet Gulf Company.
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