A Slice of the Downtown Eating Life at Pizza Kitchen

The Downtown eating options keep improving. The latest restaurant on the scene is the California Pizza Kitchen, which opened to a packed house on Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Center Building, 330 S. Hope St. The phone number is (213) 626-2616.

For CPK aficionados there are few surprises. Here you’ll find the same blend of designer pizzas topped with imaginative ingredients and cooked in a wood-fired oven, pasta plates, salads and popular prices that have made this poor man’s Spago a hit all over town.

If you’re feeling really adventurous you might opt for the moo shu chicken calzone and top your meal off with a hot fudge sundae. On the other hand, you might go someplace else for dessert: With this newcomer the Wells Fargo Center, already home to Stepps, Mandarin Cove, an upscale McDonald’s, a decent cafeteria, a Mrs. Field’s cookie shop and a Robin Rose ice cream parlor, has become an even more appealing place to be at lunchtime.