Vintage pizzas from CPK

 What goes around comes around. Vintage gets better with time, people long for what they have previously loved. It is true for fashion and design as it is for food.

California Pizza Kitchen, the pizza company that redefined the pizza wheel by putting everything on top — and we mean everything, from Peking duck to guacamole and wonton crisps — has brought back five original pizzas from when it first opened in Beverly Hills, California, 26 years ago.

They are Goat Cheese Pizza, Peking Duck Pizza, Tostada Chicken Pizza, Santa Fe Chicken Pizza and Teriyaki Chicken Pizza.

Archie Rodriguez, president and CEO of Global Restaurant Concepts Inc., the local partner of CPK, says, “Although CPK is all about offering new creative and innovative dishes, from time to time we often think about our treasured loved ones.  So what better way to time travel?  Not only are we bringing back these pizzas in their original formula, they are returning with more novelty, through a new, hand-stretched pizza dough.  As always, we are not your ordinary pizza chain.”

CPK puts much emphasis on its return to hand-stretched pizza, the authentic way of making pizza, which is perhaps the only “traditional” thing about CPK.

“Hand-stretched pizza dough also helps accentuate the ingredients more.  Each pizza becomes a unique mix of crispiness and softness.  Aesthetically, there may be little difference between them, except for some puffiness in the crust.”

To many people, CPK’s Peking Duck Pizza was the unforgettable flavor that announced to the world just how different the pizza chain was. It had strips of roasted duck, crispy fried wonton, shiitake mushrooms, mozzarella cheese and hoisin ginger sauce. Before CPK, and perhaps even until now, duck was probably the last thing you’d think of putting as a topping.

Goat Cheese Pizza, a favorite even of non-vegetarians and the all-around winner at the tasting lunch, is made with goat cheese, mozzarella, sautéed onion, grilled eggplant, red and yellow peppers with tomato sauce and garnished with parsley. As a pizza topping, grilled eggplant is unique to CPK.

Tostada Chicken Pizza features Southwestern black beans, Monterey jack, queso quesadilla and grilled chicken breast topped with lettuce, chunky fresh tomato salsa, ranch dressing, scallion greens and crispy tortilla strips.  The pizza is unique for its Southwestern black bean sauce, which is widely used in Latin America in soups, stews and sauces. 

The Santa Fe Chicken Pizza comes with grilled chicken breast, caramelized onions, mozzarella cheese and topped with cilantro, chunky fresh tomato salsa, sour cream and fresh guacamole.  The caramelized onions serve as the pizza sauce’s base.  It has a mild sweet taste that matches perfectly with the aromatic hint of cilantro and the rest of the ingredients.

Making its first appearance in the Philippine branches but one that was on the original Beverly Hills menu of CPK is Teriyaki Chicken Pizza, made of teriyaki chicken strips, mozzarella, queso quesadilla, red and yellow peppers, red onions, and slivered scallions with a teriyaki-ginger sauce.

“CPK is always looking for inspiration everywhere,” Rodriguez says.  “We like to offer innovative and adventurous pizzas.  Goat Cheese Pizza has Greek influences. Tostada Chicken Pizza and Santa Fe Chicken Pizza are a salute to Tex-Mex influences, a blend of American and Mexican cuisine, which is pretty popular in California.  Of course, from Asia we have Peking Duck Pizza and Teriyaki Chicken Pizza.”

These vintage pizzas from CPK’s first menu are available until Aug. 31. In the new CPK Vintage Pizza Passport promo, every purchase of a vintage pizza earns a stamp.  Guests who try out all five vintage pizzas can exchange the fully stamped passport for P500 worth of CPK gift certificates. 

So why were the pizzas removed from the menu in the first place? “We believe food wasn’t meant to be timeless.  It should be surprising, delightful, and accessible,” says Rodriguez. “And with our ‘California mindset,’ we are constantly experimenting and trying new things.  But in order to try new things, we had to make room for more adventurous dishes.  The CPK menu is constantly evolving.  I think our guests welcome that adventure, which is why CPK has become the pizza authority.  Whenever people want pizzas that are unique and original, they know it will be in CPK.  As we’ve said before, we’re going back to our California roots, going back to where we started.  CPK at its very formation was about inspiring our guests with inspirational foods, with a California twist.”

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The vintage pizzas are available until Aug. 31. California Pizza Kitchen branches are located at Greenbelt 5, 401-70160, 572-5965; Power Plant Mall, 895-3447, 895-5250; Alabang Town Center, 850-5771; Shangri-La Plaza Mall, 687-7841, 687, 7842; TriNoma, 901-3881, 9013882; Promenade Mall, Greenhills, 725-7377; Lucky Chinatown, Binondo, 254-3151, 254-3172; W Global Center, Bonifacio Global City, 668-3912; Harbor Point, Subic Bay Freeport Zone, (047) 251-1084, and (047) 251-1085.