Raduno Brick Oven and Barroom serves pizza and an Italian style menu in a long space.  One side is the 36-foot bar counter with seating and the opposite wall is a long bench seat fitted with small combinable tables.  A couple of large TV screens are above the bar and a mirrored wall covering is above the bench.  Some plants and sports memorabilia serve as decorations for the room.  There was faint music in the background but you could barely hear it for the loud hum of conversation in the room.  There are 20 beers on tap as well as a full bar offering.  The modern, casual feel is blended with the reclaimed wooden floors that had previously been 18-wheeler trailer beds and the antique brick bar.   The name Raduno translates to “place of gathering” which it seems to be in the SoMa section of Little Rock.  The service was slow and constantly disappearing but it was very crowded.  However, someone other than our server brought out the pies and they had sat in the back for some time.   The food was average at best.

Set-Up

Food

We tried 2 of their specialty pizzas and they both came out room temperature, which kept my mouth from being burned but was way sloppy.  The sausage and fennel pie included roast garlic, tomato, sausage, roasted fennel, mushrooms, mozzarella, parmesan, basil, oregano and chili flakes.  The tomato was not sauce but chunks of tomato and it felt like nothing stood out on the pie.  It was a lot of ingredients but just okay.  The crust did have a nice puff to the edge.

The spicy honey and sopressata pie contained olive oil, spiced salami, fresh mozzarella, tomato, spicy honey, crisped basil and chili flakes.  This was our favorite of the 2 but the toppings fell off without much effort.  Not sure why they didn’t adhere to the crust but this was annoying.  It also made the sticky and greasy honey oil drip off the empty shell.  Better flavor with poor execution.

The Zeppoles were fried ricotta donut holes tossed in cinnamon-sugar with a caramel drizzle.  I love donuts so I had to try these but they were fairly gummy inside without enough crisp to the exterior.  The cinnamon-sugar was mostly cinnamon without an adequate complement of sugar.