California-style pizza
Encyclopedia
California-style pizza is a style of single-serving pizza
that combines New York and Italian thin crust with toppings from the California cuisine
cooking style. Wolfgang Puck
popularized this style of pizza. Restaurant chains such as California Pizza Kitchen
, Extreme Pizza
, and Sammy's Woodfired Pizza are three major pizza franchises associated with California-style pizza, but it is served in a number of California Cuisine restaurants.
(the "Prince of Pizza"), then working as pizza chef for Spectrum Foods' Prego Restaurant in San Francisco's Cow Hollow neighborhood, and by pizza chefs working for Alice Waters
at the Chez Panisse
cafe in Berkeley, California
.
LaDou had learned pizza-making in the 1970s as a teenager at Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too, a traditional New York-style pizzeria in Mountain View, California
. He made pizzas briefly at Ecco, an upscale restaurant at the Hyatt Hotel in Palo Alto, California
, before starting at Prego. Although Prego specialized in classic, Italian-style thin crust pizzas, its chefs encouraged LaDou to experiment with prosciutto, goat cheese, and truffles in their wood-burning oven, and send his results to guests. One table, to whom he served an off-menu invention involving mustard
, ricotta
, paté
and red pepper
turned out to be chef Wolfgang Puck
and his then-girlfriend designer Barbara Lazaroff.
By 1980, Alice Waters' Chez Panisse and its head chef Jeremiah Tower
had already invented California cuisine
, a combination of French
and Italian
techniques and presentation with fresh local ingredient-focused flavors. Waters was a long-time fan of Tommasso's Italian restaurant in San Francisco's North Beach
, which had installed the West Coast
's first wood-fired pizza oven when it opened in 1935. After traveling to Italy, Waters decided to make an open kitchen featuring a Tomasso's-style pizza oven the focus of the new cafe she was opening above her main dining room. Although prepared in classic fashion, her chefs added exotic fine ingredients to their single-serving pizzas and calzone
s, such as goat cheese and duck sausage. Her cafe, and its pizzas in particular, were an instant success, attracting wide attention among food critics.
Wolfgang Puck, in 1980 and 1981, was preparing to open the restaurant that would make him famous, Spago, in West Hollywood, California
. Initially conceived as a pizzeria, Spago's was modeled after the upstairs cafe at Chez Panisse. He was so impressed with the pizza LaDou had made for him at Prego, he hired LaDou as head pizza chef. Under Puck's guidance, LaDou developed more than 250 pizza concepts using ingredients such as scallops, roe
, and baby zucchini flowers. Among their most famous invention was "Jewish pizza", a pizza dough first cooked then topped with smoked salmon
, crème fraîche
, capers, and dill
. Another innovation was using infused olive oil
, baby vegetables, chili oil, and flavored dough.
In 1985 LaDou helped two inexperienced lawyer-restaurateurs, Richard L. Rosenfeld and Larry S. Flax, start a new restaurant concept, California Pizza Kitchen
(also known as "CPK"). He brought them many of Spago's recipes, which he had carefully saved. The new restaurant borrowed the concept of open kitchens centered around wood-burning pizza ovens from Spago, but instead of exotic gourmet ingredients it used innovative but simpler comfort food
toppings. When the new restaurant's chef quit less than a month before opening, LaDou quickly designed and cooked an entire menu, inventing the now-ubiquitous barbecue chicken pizza on the spot. LaDou also helped develop pizza menus for Sammy's Woodfired Pizza and the Hard Rock Cafe
.
Both Wolfgang Puck and California Pizza Kitchen were instrumental in turning California-style pizza from a gourmet
food trend to a mass consumer food product. Based on the success of his pizzas and his status as a celebrity chef
, Puck opened a series of restaurants, ranging from high end clones of Spago, to convenience chains for airports and mall food courts. California Pizza Kitchen grew to 200 outlets. Both introduced frozen pizzas, but after an early success Puck's supermarket lines were overtaken by CPK's, which are backed by Kraft
foods.
In much the same way as pizza restaurants throughout the United States may carry a Chicago-style deep dish option, they may also have California-style items on the menu. Once-innovative ingredients like barbecue, curry, eggs, or goat cheese, are now sold at more traditional pizza restaurants and chains, as simply another topping choice. California-style pizza is common as frozen pre-prepared pizza as well. A number of smaller and newer chains either specialize in, or carry, the style. In the fine dining end, many expensive restaurants continue to offer single-serving pizzas with expensive or exotic ingredients, baked in wood ovens, or even devote a portion of their menu to California-style pizza.
While most other styles are associated with their own kind of crust, the distinguishing feature of California-style pizza is the use of nontraditional toppings that derive from cuisine
s other than the usual Italian-style
tomato sauce
and mozzarella cheese, and especially incorporating fresh vegetable
s such as artichokes
. For example, California-style pizza might include Thai pizza topped with bean sprouts and peanut sauce; Mexican
pizza topped with carne asada
, guacamole
, and sour cream
; Caribbean
pizza topped with Jamaican jerk
chicken
; or chicken pizza with a white creamy garlic sauce. A breakfast
pizza is in the same genre, with toppings such as scrambled eggs
.
California pizzas are generally smaller than the standard eight-slice Neapolitan; most are single-serving dishes. While this provides more versatility in individual tastes, it can be surprising to those who are used to the traditional size, expecting a single pizza to serve five or six people.
Pizza
Pizza is an oven-baked, flat, disc-shaped bread typically topped with a tomato sauce, cheese and various toppings.Originating in Italy, from the Neapolitan cuisine, the dish has become popular in many parts of the world. An establishment that makes and sells pizzas is called a "pizzeria"...
that combines New York and Italian thin crust with toppings from the California cuisine
California Cuisine
California cuisine is a style of cuisine marked by an interest in fusion cuisine and in the use of freshly prepared local ingredients.The food is typically prepared with strong attention to presentation...
cooking style. Wolfgang Puck
Wolfgang Puck
Wolfgang Johannes Puck is an Austrian-American celebrity chef, restaurateur, businessman and occasional actor. Wolfgang Puck restaurants, catering services, cookbooks and licensed products are run by Wolfgang Puck Companies, with three divisions...
popularized this style of pizza. Restaurant chains such as California Pizza Kitchen
California Pizza Kitchen
California Pizza Kitchen , known within the food industry as CPK, is a casual dining restaurant chain that specializes in California-style pizza...
, Extreme Pizza
Extreme Pizza
Extreme Pizza is a privately-held restaurant franchise chain specializing in conventional and California-style pizza, founded by Todd Parent and Michael Pastor in 1994 in San Francisco, California. The chain currently includes over 30 locations in the United States, and one in Ireland...
, and Sammy's Woodfired Pizza are three major pizza franchises associated with California-style pizza, but it is served in a number of California Cuisine restaurants.
History
California-style pizza was invented more or less simultaneously in 1980 by Ed LaDouEd LaDou
Ed LaDou was an American pizza chef, who is credited with popularizing gourmet California-style pizzas. Ed LaDou was the first pizza chef at Wolfgang Puck's Spago restaurant in L.A...
(the "Prince of Pizza"), then working as pizza chef for Spectrum Foods' Prego Restaurant in San Francisco's Cow Hollow neighborhood, and by pizza chefs working for Alice Waters
Alice Waters
Alice Louise Waters is an American chef, restaurateur, activist, and author. She is the owner of Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California restaurant famous for its organic, locally-grown ingredients and for pioneering California cuisine.Waters opened the restaurant in 1971. It has consistently ranked...
at the Chez Panisse
Chez Panisse
Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California restaurant known for using local, organic foods and credited as the inspiration for the style of cooking known as California cuisine. Well-known restauranteur, author, and food activist Alice Waters co-founded Chez Panisse in 1971 with film producer Paul...
cafe in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
.
LaDou had learned pizza-making in the 1970s as a teenager at Frankie, Johnnie & Luigi Too, a traditional New York-style pizzeria in Mountain View, California
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
. He made pizzas briefly at Ecco, an upscale restaurant at the Hyatt Hotel in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
, before starting at Prego. Although Prego specialized in classic, Italian-style thin crust pizzas, its chefs encouraged LaDou to experiment with prosciutto, goat cheese, and truffles in their wood-burning oven, and send his results to guests. One table, to whom he served an off-menu invention involving mustard
Mustard (condiment)
Mustard is a condiment made from the seeds of a mustard plant...
, ricotta
Ricotta
Ricotta is an Italian dairy product made from sheep milk whey left over from the production of cheese. Although typically referred to as ricotta cheese, ricotta is not properly a cheese because it is not produced by coagulation of casein...
, paté
Pâté
Pâté is a mixture of ground meat and fat minced into a spreadable paste. Common additions include vegetables, herbs, spices, and either wine or cognac, armagnac or brandy...
and red pepper
Capsicum
Capsicum is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. Its species are native to the Americas where they have been cultivated for thousands of years, but they are now also cultivated worldwide, used as spices, vegetables, and medicines - and have become are a key element in...
turned out to be chef Wolfgang Puck
Wolfgang Puck
Wolfgang Johannes Puck is an Austrian-American celebrity chef, restaurateur, businessman and occasional actor. Wolfgang Puck restaurants, catering services, cookbooks and licensed products are run by Wolfgang Puck Companies, with three divisions...
and his then-girlfriend designer Barbara Lazaroff.
Jeremiah Tower
Jeremiah Tower is an American celebrity chef who, along with Wolfgang Puck, Alice Waters, and Jonathan Waxman, is generally credited with developing the culinary style known as California cuisine.-Biography:...
had already invented California cuisine
California Cuisine
California cuisine is a style of cuisine marked by an interest in fusion cuisine and in the use of freshly prepared local ingredients.The food is typically prepared with strong attention to presentation...
, a combination of French
French cuisine
French cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from France that has developed from centuries of social change. In the Middle Ages, Guillaume Tirel , a court chef, authored Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of Medieval France...
and Italian
Italian cuisine
Italian cuisine has developed through centuries of social and political changes, with roots as far back as the 4th century BCE. Italian cuisine in itself takes heavy influences, including Etruscan, ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Byzantine, Jewish and Arab cuisines...
techniques and presentation with fresh local ingredient-focused flavors. Waters was a long-time fan of Tommasso's Italian restaurant in San Francisco's North Beach
North Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It still holds many Italian restaurants today, though...
, which had installed the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
's first wood-fired pizza oven when it opened in 1935. After traveling to Italy, Waters decided to make an open kitchen featuring a Tomasso's-style pizza oven the focus of the new cafe she was opening above her main dining room. Although prepared in classic fashion, her chefs added exotic fine ingredients to their single-serving pizzas and calzone
Calzone
A calzone Italian: , "stocking" or "trouser") is a turnover that originates from Italy. It is shaped like a semicircle, made of dough folded over and filled with ingredients common to pizza....
s, such as goat cheese and duck sausage. Her cafe, and its pizzas in particular, were an instant success, attracting wide attention among food critics.
Wolfgang Puck, in 1980 and 1981, was preparing to open the restaurant that would make him famous, Spago, in West Hollywood, California
West Hollywood, California
West Hollywood, a city of Los Angeles County, California, was incorporated on November 29, 1984, with a population of 34,399 at the 2010 census. 41% of the city's population is made up of gay men according to a 2002 demographic analysis by Sara Kocher Consulting for the City of West Hollywood...
. Initially conceived as a pizzeria, Spago's was modeled after the upstairs cafe at Chez Panisse. He was so impressed with the pizza LaDou had made for him at Prego, he hired LaDou as head pizza chef. Under Puck's guidance, LaDou developed more than 250 pizza concepts using ingredients such as scallops, roe
Roe
Roe or hard roe is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries, or the released external egg masses of fish and certain marine animals, such as shrimp, scallop and sea urchins...
, and baby zucchini flowers. Among their most famous invention was "Jewish pizza", a pizza dough first cooked then topped with smoked salmon
Smoked salmon
Smoked salmon is a preparation of salmon, typically a fillet that has been cured and then hot or cold smoked. Due to its moderately high price, smoked salmon is considered a delicacy.-Presentation:...
, crème fraîche
Crème fraîche
Crème fraîche is a soured cream containing about 28% butterfat and with a pH of around 4.5. It is soured with bacterial culture, but is less sour than sour cream. It has a comparatively high viscosity and a higher fat content....
, capers, and dill
Dill
Dill is a perennial herb. It is the sole species of the genus Anethum, though classified by some botanists in a related genus as Peucedanum graveolens C.B.Clarke.-Growth:...
. Another innovation was using infused olive oil
Olive oil
Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...
, baby vegetables, chili oil, and flavored dough.
California Pizza Kitchen
California Pizza Kitchen , known within the food industry as CPK, is a casual dining restaurant chain that specializes in California-style pizza...
(also known as "CPK"). He brought them many of Spago's recipes, which he had carefully saved. The new restaurant borrowed the concept of open kitchens centered around wood-burning pizza ovens from Spago, but instead of exotic gourmet ingredients it used innovative but simpler comfort food
Comfort food
Comfort food is food prepared traditionally that may have a nostalgic or sentimental appeal. Comfort foods may be foods that have a nostalgic element either to an individual or a specific culture...
toppings. When the new restaurant's chef quit less than a month before opening, LaDou quickly designed and cooked an entire menu, inventing the now-ubiquitous barbecue chicken pizza on the spot. LaDou also helped develop pizza menus for Sammy's Woodfired Pizza and the Hard Rock Cafe
Hard Rock Cafe
Hard Rock Cafe is a chain of theme restaurants founded in 1971 by Americans Peter Morton & Isaac Tigrett. In 1979, the cafe began covering its walls with rock and roll memorabilia, a tradition which expanded to others in the chain. In 2006, Hard Rock was sold to the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and...
.
Both Wolfgang Puck and California Pizza Kitchen were instrumental in turning California-style pizza from a gourmet
Gourmet
Gourmet is a cultural ideal associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterised by elaborate preparations and presentations of large meals of small, often quite rich courses...
food trend to a mass consumer food product. Based on the success of his pizzas and his status as a celebrity chef
Celebrity chef
A celebrity chef is a kitchen chef who has become famous and well known. Today celebrity chefs often become celebrities by presenting cookery advice and demonstrations via mass media, especially television. Historically, celebrity chefs have included Antoine Carême and Martino da Como.-External...
, Puck opened a series of restaurants, ranging from high end clones of Spago, to convenience chains for airports and mall food courts. California Pizza Kitchen grew to 200 outlets. Both introduced frozen pizzas, but after an early success Puck's supermarket lines were overtaken by CPK's, which are backed by Kraft
Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods Inc. is an American confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It markets many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earn more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, Tang...
foods.
Description
While most other styles are associated with their own kind of crust, the distinguishing feature of California-style pizza is the use of nontraditional toppings that derive from cuisine
Cuisine
Cuisine is a characteristic style of cooking practices and traditions, often associated with a specific culture. Cuisines are often named after the geographic areas or regions that they originate from...
s other than the usual Italian-style
Italian cuisine
Italian cuisine has developed through centuries of social and political changes, with roots as far back as the 4th century BCE. Italian cuisine in itself takes heavy influences, including Etruscan, ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Byzantine, Jewish and Arab cuisines...
tomato sauce
Tomato sauce
A tomato sauce is any of a very large number of sauces made primarily from tomatoes, usually to be served as part of a dish...
and mozzarella cheese, and especially incorporating fresh vegetable
Vegetable
The noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....
s such as artichokes
Globe artichoke
The globe artichoke is a perennial thistle of the Cynara genus originating in Southern Europe around the Mediterranean. It grows to tall, with arching, deeply lobed, silvery, glaucous-green leaves long. The flowers develop in a large head from an edible bud about diameter with numerous...
. For example, California-style pizza might include Thai pizza topped with bean sprouts and peanut sauce; Mexican
Mexican cuisine
Mexican cuisine, a style of food that originates in Mexico, is known for its varied flavors, colourful decoration and variety of spices and ingredients, most of which are native to the country. The cuisine of Mexico has evolved through thousands of years of blending indigenous cultures, with later...
pizza topped with carne asada
Carne asada
In Mexican cuisine, "Carne asada" is an item that consists of thin beef steak. The meat can be marinated by rubbing with olive oil and salt or with spice rubs such as lemon and pepper or garlic salt, lime, or Worcestershire sauce, before being cooked on a grill. The meat can be served alone or...
, guacamole
Guacamole
Guacamole , is an avocado-based dip that originated in Mexico. It is traditionally made by mashing ripe avocados with a molcajete with sea salt. Some recipes call for limited tomato, spicy Asian spices such as white onion, lime juice, and/or additional seasonings.-History:Guacamole was made by...
, and sour cream
Sour cream
Sour cream is a dairy product rich in fats obtained by fermenting a regular cream by certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria. The bacterial culture, which is introduced either deliberately or naturally, sours and thickens the cream. Its name stems from the production of lactic acid by bacterial...
; Caribbean
Caribbean cuisine
Caribbean cuisine is a fusion of African, Amerindian, British, Spanish, French, Dutch, Indian, and Chinese cuisine. These traditions were brought from the many homelands of this region's population...
pizza topped with Jamaican jerk
Jamaican jerk spice
Jerk is a style of cooking native to Jamaica in which meat is dry-rubbed or wet marinated with a very hot spice mixture called Jamaican jerk spice. Jerk seasoning is traditionally applied to pork and chicken. Modern recipes also apply jerk spice mixes to fish, shrimp, shellfish, beef, sausage,...
chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
; or chicken pizza with a white creamy garlic sauce. A breakfast
Breakfast
Breakfast is the first meal taken after rising from a night's sleep, most often eaten in the early morning before undertaking the day's work...
pizza is in the same genre, with toppings such as scrambled eggs
Scrambled eggs
Scrambled eggs is a dish made from beaten whites and yolks of eggs . Beaten eggs are put into a hot pot or pan and stirred frequently, forming curds as they coagulate.-Sample preparation:...
.
California pizzas are generally smaller than the standard eight-slice Neapolitan; most are single-serving dishes. While this provides more versatility in individual tastes, it can be surprising to those who are used to the traditional size, expecting a single pizza to serve five or six people.