Prunella adds more pizza and small bites to the restaurant mix in Center City

The area around 13th and Sansom Streets in Washington Square West has a lot of pizza and a lot of Michael Schulson restaurants.

The two merge Wednesday when Schulson opens Prunella in the former Zavino space on the northwest corner. Schulson owns Sampan and Graffiti Bar, plus Double Knot and Alpen Rose down the street, and he is planning an oyster bar on the opposite corner, where Tredici was.

Within a hundred yards are pizza options from the long-running Zio’s, as well as Barbuzzo and the new Good Luck Pizza Co., both from Marcie Turney and Valerie Safran.

» READ MORE: How to make pizza like Joe Beddia does. Craig LaBan gives his recipe a try.

Prunella’s homespun, curio-filled interior is dominated by a 14-seat marble bar. In season, the action will spill out from floor-to-ceiling windows onto sidewalk seating on Sansom Street. Culinary director Ed Pinello and executive chef Kevin Sweeney oversee a menu of salads and small plates (octopus with grilled lemon, roasted eggplant “caponata”). The pizza dough is made by Nick Brannon, who left Parc last year after nearly a decade. He’s doing what Schulson’s reps describe as very thin, crispy American-style pies.

As for the name, Schulson returned to botany. Where alpenrose is a rhododendron, the prunella is an herbaceous “heal-all” plant.

It’s open for dinner daily from 4 p.m.