Dining Around The Desert: Wolfgang Puck Pizza Bar, Palm Desert
The Wolfgang Puck Pizza Bar is Wolfgang’s first Pizza Bar on the West Coast and offers another good dining option on El Paseo. Just opened this year, this new restaurant features a patio out front, an attractive bar area and two inside dining rooms. All of these features allow it to accommodate the full spectrum of guests, including sports fans, who can take advantage of four large screen TVs behind the bar.
Back In The Day, I Worked For Wolf
My husband, Bill, and I recently visited Wolfgang’s for dinner and drinks at the bar. I was especially interested because, back in the day, I worked for Wolf at his original Spago Restaurant in West Hollywood. Wolf’s Pizza Bar is of course considered casual dining compared to the fine dining offered at Spago.
I ordered the spinach and smoked mozzarella salad with red onions, crispy potatoes, and a warm pancetta vinaigrette dressing. It was excellent! Bill and I shared Wolfgang’s classic smoked salmon pizza with dill cream, salmon roe, red onions and chives. This pizza, while a bit different at Spago, was always one of my favorites and I was not disappointed on this visit.
A Variety Of App's, Salads, Entrees And Of Course, Pizza
Even if you're a picky eater, the menu at Wolfgang’s features enough variety for you to find something you can love. It includes an array of appetizers, salads, pastas, and entrees including chicken paillard, steak, salmon, hand-rubbed roasted pork and Ahi tuna. Fifteen individual pizzas also offered quite a variety to choose from; gluten-free and vegetarian dining options are also available.
As far as beverages are concerned, Wolfgang’s offers an interesting list of specialty cocktails, including my personal favorite, the Gin Basil, which is made with gin, fresh basil, cucumber, lemongrass and grapefruit juice. I changed it to vodka instead of gin and it was just as good as the original. Bill enjoyed a glass of New Harbour Sauvignon Blanc wine from New Zealand, which was featured on Wolfgang’s varied wine list.
Wolfgang Puck Pizza Bar offers a Happy Hour from 3PM to 6PM daily, along with their new Bar Bites menu. The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner and is located at 73-130 El Paseo in Palm Desert. (760) 568-2700
In our two-dozen plus visits (more on that later), we’ve also enjoyed some nice salads, several other pasta dishes, such as Lasagna Emilina, several nightly specials, and a few pizzas made in the Marra Forni wood fired brick oven. And while most dishes have been very good, I say again that the pastas are the real stars at Bucatini! Every single pasta dish we have sampled was cooked al dente and sauced to perfection.
Many local regulars to Cliffhouse avoid the front entrance and instead use the back stairway located on the far right of the building that’s set into the cliff. This path takes you directly to the Cactus Bar And Grill patio area set against the cliff and then into the interior space of the grill and bar.
We noticed a lot of new staff and management during our visit. Several longtime employees have moved on to other establishments including longtime bar manager “AJ” whom we discovered is now the bar manager at Arnold Palmer’s Restaurant in La Quinta.
