ZaZa Fine Salad and Wood-Oven Pizza Co

ZaZa offers 12 pizzas, 10 salads and a revolving selection of gelato. It may not seem like a big menu, but you can customize their wood-oven pizzas and salads to your desires. The restaurant is kind of small and informal, but great for a casual lunch or dinner. Fun atmosphere. Moderately priced.

I read that the same mind behind Boulevard Bread is also behind ZaZa so I had to check it. Like Boulevard, ZaZa uses local ingredients whenever possible to deliver the freshest salads and pizzas available.

They have an amazing wood oven that the chef boasted would cook a pizza faster than I had ever seen. He was right, the pizza only took about four minutes to cook.

There are two lines at ZaZa: gelato and to-go orders and pizza and salad orders (if you just want a pizza, skip the salad line and go to the register). You go through the line, tell the chef what you want and pick a seat in their smallish dining area. You can get a good look at their large selection of fresh greens as you walk down to the pizza oven. The pizza oven is a small, circular wood-burning oven and if you like, you can watch the chef make your pizza too.

I had the house salad ($8.25). Salads start at around $5. I decided to try a weird potato herb pizza which was around $10 (pizzas start at $8). They also have a changing array of homemade gelato and will let you sample them. I had the Nutella gelato ($2.95).

The salad was perfect. Fresh, well dressed and delicious. The pizza was not that great, but perhaps it was my pizza choice. The potato seemed to make the crust soggy and it was very salty. The crust was great, but a little overdone. I will have to try a more normal pizza next time. The gelato was creamy, smooth and perfect. I would go back just for more gelato.

Overall, I would recommend the restaurant, and I will give the pizzas a second chance.

5600 Kavanaugh Blvd. (behind the Heights Theater)
M-Th: 10:30 a.m.-9 p.m.
F-S: 10:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. and noon-7 p.m.
501-661-9292