Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews

79	California Pizza Kitchen Oxmoor Center 7900 Shelbyville Road (502) 425-5125 Website: http://www.cpk.com

What's a California pizza, anyway?

Trace it back 20 years or so, and you'll recall the creations of such gurus as Alice Waters of Berkeley's Chez Panisse (where last week's menu featured pizza with spring onions, sorrel, and anchovy) or Chef Wolfgang Puck (who shocked diners at his Spago in Los Angeles by dolloping sour cream and caviar on a pizza crust).

In those days, the dawn of "fusion" cookery, it seemed like quite an adventure to take a concept as Italian as pizza and give it a multi-ethnic spin with non-traditional toppings from the melting pot of Pacific Rim cultures that shaped California.

And like just about every successful culinary idea from blackened fish to the tortilla wrap, it inspired imitation that eventually trickled down, in somewhat mutated form, to the mass market.

Say hello to California Pizza Kitchen, a growing chain, established in 1985 in Beverly Hills (of course) and now boasting more than 100 properties in the U.S. and seven other countries. Its first Louisville location opened at Oxmoor Center last month and plans to celebrate its grand opening this coming Monday (June 10) by turning over the day's pizza proceeds to The Louisville Orchestra.

"A pizza is a canvas and you can paint on it all day long," according to a quote that, in a masterpiece of public-relations jiggery-pokery, the company attributed jointly to BOTH of its co-founders, Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax.

And it's a fact that the pizzas here are artful, designed to tickle the eyeballs as well as the palate with creative combinations of color, texture and flavor. In a couple of early visits I've found the pizzas here enjoyable if not quite inspiring, about as good as you have any right to expect from a corporate kitchen aimed at the high side of the least common denominator.

The Oxmoor Center operation has been drawing very large crowds since its May 21 opening. Even with 185 seats on the good-size premises, you can count on a wait of 30 to 60 minutes for a table if you drop by at midday. The decor is upscale pizza-house, with a large, white-tile pizza oven and semicircular bar at the back and a bright, noisy dining area with shiny, hard-edged black-and-gold tables and bright primary-color paintings on pizza boxes under glass.

The menu is substantial, offering a half-dozen appetizers (from $3.99 for focaccia with tomatoes and basil to $6.79 for Singapore shrimp rolls); several soups at $4.99 for a good-size bowl, and 10 salads (starting at $4.99 for a half-portion of most items to $9.99 for a smoked bacon and gorgonzola cheese salad on chopped lettuce).

The pizza selection is extensive, as you would expect from a place that has "Pizza" as its middle name. Traditionalists may choose from four "Neapolitan" pizzas in Italian style on thin, crisp crusts, from $8.59 (for a classic Margherita with tomatoes, mozzarella and basil) to $9.99 (for the Sicilian with assorted meats and cheeses).

The main pizza list features a wild array of "fusion" toppings that span the globe from Italy (Traditional Cheese, $7.79) to China (Peking Duck, $9.99) with stops in between at Mexico (Carne Asada, $9.99) and a U.S. truck stop (Philly Cheesesteak, $9.59) and many more. Pizzas are good-size, thin but close to 12 inches in diameter, enough for two to share with an appetizer, and top out at just $10.79 for the priciest pie on the list, grilled garlic shrimp.

Rounding out the menu, you'll find a dozen pasta dishes from just as bewildering an array of ethnic heritages, from $8.29 (for tomato basil spaghettini) to $13.99 (for spaghetti marinara with chicken and shrimp or, get this, Kung Pao spaghetti with chicken and shrimp or Thai linguini with chicken and shrimp). Three focaccia sandwiches are $7.49 for a vegetarian sandwich with grilled eggplant and roasted peppers or $7.99 for grilled rosemary chicken or a grilled-chicken Caesar on a sandwich. There's an extensive selection of desserts, and beer and mass-market wines are available.

We've tried a couple of starters and pizzas on two visits and, as noted, found it all ranging from acceptable to very good. Complimentary plates of dense white Italian bread with institutional packets of salty butter were good enough if more akin to factory bread than anything artisanal.

A pair of Singapore shrimp rolls ($6.79), akin to Vietnamese or Thai salad rolls, were the size and shape of egg rolls but come wrapped in translucent, edible rice paper that shows the contents - jumbo shrimp rolled up with cilantro and julienned bamboo shoots and carrot, served on an attractive triangular yellow plate with a hot-sweet hoisin sauce and a ration of tasty Szechwan slaw, two colors of crisp shredded cabbage and a couple of grilled-chicken tidbits in a light, tangy sesame sauce.

The Dakota smashed pea and barley soup ($4.99) was a warming bowl, just right for an unseasonably cool late-spring day, a thick and comforting pale-green puree studded with tender barley and bits of carrot.

A Peking Duck pizza ($9.99) was an intriguing creation, surprisingly reminiscent of the Chinese original, with a few scanty bits of dark duck meat appetizingly stretched with meaty slices of marinated shiitake mushroom and crunchy bits of fried Chinese noodles, spread atop a light coating of melted mozzarella and topped with sweet hoisin sauce and a generous ration of shredded scallions and fresh ginger. Once you get past the surprise of finding a Chinese-restaurant specialty topping a pizza, it was fairly addictive, with the caveat that the hoisin sauce is mighty sweet.

The wild mushroom pizza ($8.99) was a bit closer to traditional, also a "white pie" (two cheeses but no tomatoes) topped with a good ration of sliced, sauteed mushrooms (the menu claims white mushrooms plus shiitakes, portabellos and crimini mushrooms, but the basic white button mushrooms appeared to dominate the mix).

In both cases the toppings were tasty but the pizza portion pedestrian. There's nothing really wrong with it, but it's a rather limp, thin-crusted dough without any real character, even when it comes to the table attractively golden brown from the fire in the pizza oven.

Bottom line? Give California Pizza Kitchen high marks for upscale shopping-center atmosphere and competent, friendly service, but when it comes to the food, I can't rate it on the same level with the hand-made quality of local pizzerias like Tony Boombozz (probably CPK's most direct competitor in the "gourmet pizza" niche) or Impellizzeri's, Luigi's, Clifton's, Wick's, Za's or quite a few other local Italian-style spots. I wouldn't make a special trip, but wouldn't hesitate to stop in for a quick, tasty lunch if I was in the neighborhood.

A quick lunch for one, with a jug of San Pellegrino sparkling water, came to about $15 with tip; on a return visit, two of us handled a pizza, appetizer, soup and iced teas for $23.91 plus a $5 tip. $$

(June 2002)