Russo’s Coal Fired Italian Kitchen

Great tasting Pizza. My wife and i had the cucumber salad and was delicious. We have been here at least 4 times and we have never been disappointed. The service was out standing our severe was well knowledge on the menu items. We were able to change topping with out any hassle. The beer selection is a bit small but the great tasting food makes up for it.

The place is beyond lovely. Had an amazing experience with my love but the only thing that I didn’t like, was waiting for a waiter to serve us, literally about 30 minutes. Will come back again!

The service was amazing! Our server John was great! Very patient with us to many decisions on a great menu! It was my husbands birthday and he bought us a round of drinks and birthday cannoli !
We will definitely be back! Thank you John!

I am a pizza snob –being from the east coast i am use to being able to buy pizza by the slice –this fits the bill. Whenever I am in the area I grab a piece to take home with me. It is large and thin crust and yummy. I have only ever done take out so can’t speak to eating in

The lunch lasagna and tortellini were good, the minestrone was salty and the temperature was tepid. The server wasn’t very clued in, we had to ask for everything. The funny moment was on a water refill she asked if we wanted more ice. That was a new one.

The food was really tasty & the service was good for Corpus. I’d go back when I’m in the mood for pizza.

Not a great experience this time. Hostess was playing on her phone so a waiter sat us. When we ordered our beverages the waiter took forever to come back every though he didn’t have any other tables. We ordered our food and received the complimentary bread which was cold and very hard. As we waited on our food I watched the guy tossing dough and making pizzas in the oven behind him. He didn’t have a hairnet, was drinking from an open top glass, and I didn’t see him wash his hands once between the dough, pizza pans, oven, and anything else he may have touched. The spaghetti we ordered came out hot and had a good meaty marinara sauce, the meatballs tasted very heavily like a tangy sausage I didn’t care for. Overall bad experience, has changed dramatically in the wrong direction.

The lasagna wasn’t good, but the pizza and the rest of the food was great. The service is awesome here too!

The food was great and our waiter was very patient as we were a group of 14. The only negative was the long wait for our food and some of us were finished eating before others got their food. They should have got the waiter some help for such a big table. Overall very good!

When we first walked it was very nicely set up and had a very friendly atmosphere. Our server was very outgoing and very attentive at the beginning. Our appetizer came out quickly but when it came to our entrée it took about 45 mins for it to be served and the cook/​server forgot one of the add-​ons for the pizza. But overall the food was very good would we go there again mostlikly, yes we would because for the friendly attitude.

Ok to start with, Service was pretty bad, couple who came in after us had their order, drinks and salad served before us.
Ok but here’s the kicker, Russo advertises Brick Oven Pizza. There is no brick oven unless you call a regular electric oven surrounded by bricks a brick oven?! The pizza was OK, such a disappointment advertising New York Pizza. NO WAY. can’t fool a true New Yorker. Won’t return.

The food was good, especially the complimentary bread. If this review were based on food only, I would give it 4.5 stars. I’m only giving three stars though because the pizza and our calamari took a very long time. Meanwhile we felt like we were freezing to death and the AC was dripping on us. When I asked our server about turning down the AC she said they always have a problem with the back room being too cold. Apparently the thermostat is broken and they don’t have the ability to turn off the AC and it runs around the clock. I wish they had offered to move us to one of the front room tables at that point. We felt a distinct difference in temperature from one room to the next when we were leaving.
We will give this place another try in the future, (making sure we don’t sit in the back room) because the food itself was good.

The menu is simplified but no complaints about the quality of the cuisine. The prices are on point and the service is excellent. Check out their XL pizza that serves 8 – 10.

OK here we go, Russo’s. Had a checkered history going here and it all revolves around the ability to make pizza in a fire stove. The very first one I had here was excellent. The next few times it was horrible. That s when we stayed away. Skip ahead about 2 years and we decide to give it another go. I am dieting so had the tomato basil soup and a Mediterranean salad. Not bad. Daughter has eggplant Parmesan and said it was too greasy. Other daughter said her pizza was good and wife said her big slice of margarita pizza was excellent. She opine they figured out how to do the stove. I pointed out they remodeled and took the hearth stove out and put in a large oven. They probably could not sustain training on how to cook in the fired stove. So cut their losses and got more of a no fail stove. As good as my wife’s pizza was it just wasn’t like that excellent pizza I first got out of their fired coal oven. Now, they don’t have that bit call them selves coal fired anyway, go figure?
Too rather annoying things on the latest visit the tables are too low with respect to the chairs. Had to put my soup on top of the finished salad bowl to boost it up a bit. Other thing was they asked too often how everything was. At least 5 times. A little much.

Delicious food and excellent service. One of our favorite restaurants! Felix, our waiter, was wonderful. Our favorite waiter, Juan, is now the General Manager, and very deserving of the promotion. I highly recommend Russo’s!

The food was ok the one time we tried this place, but I don’t think we’ll return. The place was dirty from what I could see. It was very dark inside, the menus were gross and the floor needed sweeping.

We sat at the pizza bar. Marcus, the pizza chef, entertained my youngest while my oldest and my husband enjoyed the show playing on the flat screens above the bar. The food, including a stromboli, a half and half large topped with the New York Village and the Manhattan and another topped with the Brooklyn, were all tasty! The kids pizza slice was over a foot long and my 8 yr old said it was awesome! The staff was attentive and pleasant throughout our visit. This is a place we will visit again!

I have never eaten a bad meal here. The clams and pasta are devilishly delicious. Just the right amount of garlic and seasonings with a heat that lingers. And so beautifully prepared that you almost hate to disturb the art. The pizza is fantastic and you can add fried egg which makes everything better. They have amazing salads and spaghetti. Best of all is the marvelous staff that leaves you wanting for nothing, except maybe a nap after all that food.

Three stars A-​OK for mixed experience: pasta that was middle of the road but premium, delicious chicken Parmesan and meatball sandwiches!
I’ve visited this location twice– one for dinner using a Unilocal coupon and the other for a quick lunch on one of the very rare days when it rained cats and dogs in Corpus Christi. There couldn’t be two more diverse experiences!
On the coupon day, I had a young, pretty server who seemed very confused from the moment she approached our table until the moment we left. I’d like to think it was her first day and that she’s much more adept at hospitality and food service now. I felt sympathy for her because everything that could go wrong did go wrong – we waited a long time for our waters to arrive at the table, the flatware was dirty and we sat without a clean fork for quite some time as our appetizer grew cold, she struggled opening the bottle of wine we ordered and wrangled the corkscrew and bottle like a WWE wrestler before sloshing it into tiny glasses we couldn’t possibly swirl to open the bouquet, and our orders were just mediocre after taking 20 minutes or so to come out— then our server became MIA for the last part of our unremarkable pasta meal – pasty rather than al dente. In all fairness, I could have walked to the front hostess and asked to see the general manager to give the restaurant a chance to make my order right. Instead, I just considered the evening a wash. But everyone deserves a second chance and a few months later, we returned to the scene of the (gastronomic) crime… I’m glad we did.
On the rainy day visit, we were greeted energetically at the door, seated promptly, and served by another lovely young woman who seemed bubbly and intelligent, and moved with alacrity. Our server listened to our questions and made thoughtful recommendations from the menu. Our drinks came out promptly and they were never allowed to run empty during the entire meal. The chicken Parmesan sandwich and meatball sub were amazing – savory, sauced with piquant acidity, topped with gooey melted cheese, and perched pleasantly atop toasted, crusty bread still warm from the oven. The experience was perfect. Nothing else could better bring a little sunshine into a rainy Corpus day. I’d like to think the first night was a fluke and that Russo’s offers great service and delicious dishes like my second experience on a regular basis!
Because of our first experience being roughly a two star rating and our second experience being four stars or better, I rated Russo’s right on the mean. That said, I will definitely return and may likely adjust my review to a more strongly recommend rating for the coal fired Italian kitchen after I have more experiences similar to our rainy day lunch!

We had a really great experience at Russo’s. Contrary to most reviews, our service was very fast and the staff was friendly! The complimentary bread that we were served as we sat down was delicious. He pizza we ordered did not disappoint either! We got the manhattan with Italian sausage, red peppers and onions. We’ll definitely be going back!