Richard Stubbe

I spent a recent weekend in Little Rock, Arkansas, and ate at a couple of places that I would have liked to pick up and move to Texas.

The first spot was the Zaza Fine Salad + Wood-Oven Pizza Co. at 5600 Kavanaugh Blvd. I do believe this is the only restaurant in the world that has all the things I like in one place at reasonable prices. Pizza, custom-made salads, gelato, beer and wine, and coffee. What more do you need once you’ve had breakfast?

The pizza was quite good, with the crust you can only get from wood-firing. But the way Zaza serves salad was new and different and made me ask: Why don’t more people do this? Most places with salad bars make you pick your way through the various offerings and then combine them yourself without the proper tools.

At Zaza, the salad bar follows the Chipotle or Subway serving format. You have 11 basic choices, and then you can make adjustments to those choices, and then your server mixes all your components into a single salad that is large enough to share with your friends. It’s very smart. If there were a place near me with salads like these, I’d eat there at least twice a week.

So … good pizza, good salads, good beer and wine, gelato (didn’t try it) and good coffee. More, please.

We also had excellent muffins from Boulevard Bread Co., which has four Little Rock locations. And there was dinner at Lilly’s Dim Sum Then Some, on Little Rock’s west side. Also quite good.

No Responses so far | Have Your Say!