California Pizza Kitchen just opened their very first independent location in Irvine, CA. Irvine has been known to be one of the best places to raise a family, and it holds a lot of the upper-middle class. What impressed me is how they still managed to make the location stick out in a refined place like Irvine. This big move isn’t only a new era for CPK because they’re dining independently from local malls. What makes this crucial is that these brand new independent restaurants are bigger and nicer looking than the previous locations you’d find in shopping centers.
You will be completely blown away once you step inside of California Pizza Kitchen’s new locations. We have all been to our fair share of higher end restaurants with dimmed lights and a stunning view to enjoy, well, this feels exactly like that. In fact, our stay felt like one of our friends was feeding us in their brand new beach front home. I’m not legally allowed to drink for next three years due to my age, but even I can appreciate how beautiful the bottles looked on display.
During the event my family and I, we’re lucky enough to try some familiar and new items on their menu. Out of the many things we sampled, the reigning champion still seems to be their fire grilled rib eye. I previously wrote about the rib eye in an older post, if you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend it. One of the menu items that caught my eye was their Bianco flatbread that had a sage leaf on every slice. Apparently some people found it gross ( people who clearly haven’t tried it), but I was very pleased with how well it complemented the pizza. The high-end look has the menu quality to match.
My favorite part of the event was learning how to prepare pizza dough and toss it. I’m half Italian so I thought I had an advantage, I didn’t. Anywho, the man who taught us was the same man who designed the menu and he was very kind and approachable. I tossed a good pizza. Unfortunately, my mom’s pizza landed on the floor, and a second pizza nearly landed in my hair. If those aren’t good results, I don’t know what are.
If you don’t enjoy going to local restaurants located within shopping centers, head over to California Pizza Kitchen’s new locations instead. My family and I were treated with hospitality, and CPK easily won us over as one of our favorite restaurant chains. At the end of the day, we felt like we dined in a beach front house and even better; we were all well fed. The best part is even though CPK’s look has scaled into something bigger, the prices remain the same as before.
Until Next time!
JJ King
Leave a Reply