Russo Cafe

One of my favorite places on campus. The entrees are very tasty and the portions are huge. I’ve heard good things about their dessert as well. I also love the self-​serve lemon water and strawberry water. My favorite sides are the black beans and fruits.

This place has changed its offerings a lot over the years. They just changed things again last week, and for the better! The pizza used to be too bready & mushy. Now it’s thinner and crispier; it’s closer to NY style. The staff here is great. The manager Mahari is gregarious; the host/​busser man is awesome; the grill man is a pro; and all the young gals & guys who do everything else are really on it. Now if only they’d open sooner than 11:30am. Fingers crossed.

A great option for lunch on campus. Great vegetarian options and not your run of the mill fast food. I had ribs with black rice, quinoa and kale and a beet, butternut squash and spinach salad. And the portions are a nice size too!

had the chicken tenders one night and they were really poor. lower quality than seemingly anything you’d find in the frozen section of the supermarket. tater tots also tasted like theyd been warming in the oven for 3 hrs. they were only $ 6 but restaurants shouldn’t be charging customers for this kind of thing. beer’s cheap though and i cant speak for the rest of the food.

This place is nice mostly because it adds a lot of variety to the on-​campus eating experience. They recently have «pub hours» which could be a hit.
In general, however, I find that this place has very odd hours. As such, it’s not well-​suited for working. I’ve eaten here once — the food was good, but nothing particularly stellar. The layout indoors is very nice, but large and a bit confusing to navigate. There are three different areas and while you might want something from the café, you have to pay across the room at the food cashier. Not the most intuitive experience, but still a good meal. I would go back again — but mostly just for lunch with a friend or two.

I work at Stanford University. Russo Café is one of my favorite places to eat on campus besides Axe & Palm at Old Union.
There’s always homestyle meals served in great portions, fresh and hot. Given I eat lunch alone most days, having sports or news to watch is a plus, they have two large flat screens. I’d recommend Russo for groups, but especially for single diners. It’s a nice place to spend lunch.

Meh. One of the mostly acceptable choices for food on campus. They usually have a range of choices for hot food, including pizza, specials of the day (e.g. rotisserie chicken, paella, etc.), veggie sides (beets, cauliflower, roasted potatoes), along with many choices for salads. They also have panini specials each day. But no one really seems to know what’s going on… Which specials are on for which day, etc. And where you order some things versus others is totally unclear. Some things (e.g. pizza) you pick up for yourself, some things (e.g. hot entrees) you order at the counter, some things (e.g. paninis) you order at the cash register and they give you a pager for it. Totally bananas.
The prices are quite high and food quality is middling. Unevenly heated and overall fairly bland. Not that Stanford is any kind of mecca for lunch options… But this is definitely one of the lesser choices!

Food: 2
Décor: 3
Service: 3
Came here for weekday lunch and opted for the Russo burger with a side of fruit salad.
Burger wasn’t bad, but I wish they had toasted the bread a bit. Some of the fruit wasn’t very fresh.
Service was pretty slow. I ended up waiting at least 15 min.

Expensive but nice food!

Giving this place two stars makes me feel guilty, mostly because some of the staff here are so considerate and hardworking.
However: The food just doesn’t taste good to me. Cooked food has been too salty and oddly unsatisfying; sandwiches are premade and just not delicious.
If you’re over in this part of the Stanford campus, it does have some nice seating. But I wouldn’t go here for the food. (Then again, please keep in mind that I am super, super picky.)

I’m officially obsessed with their chicken pesto sandwich. The chicken is perfectly cooked and the pesto and bread is perfect! Looking forward to trying more items @ Russo’s.

This is the only competitor to Twisted Sprout I have discovered so far for a lunchtime salad near my office. On the plus side, it is edible, which puts it ahead of some of the salads I have had at Twisted Sprout. On the minus side, the salad is just some boxed greens with cold cubed chicken on top, squirted with dressing. Do people not eat salad in California?
The other food, however, is surprisingly tasty. The roasted vegetables tend to be fresh, various and good, and come with a nice piece of fish or chicken. Oddly enough, California cuisine shines through here even if you can’t get a salad worth eating. So far, other than the Tree House, it is the best lunch near my office.

No more pizza, but now a sushi bar.
The sushi bar is actually surprisingly good. The rice was the perfect texture, the fish was fresh, and they actually even use real shiso leaves for decoration. The prices are definitely on the slightly higher end of the sushi price range.
They’re obviously still working out how to make the service run smoothly, because our order came out quite slowly.
Food quality is better– but I’m wondering if it’s a trend that it’s good at the beginning of the school year and declines as the year goes on… We’ll see how it all turns out.

I happen to work almost literally a stone’s throw away from Russo Café, located near the new law school Munger residences. This is now my go-​to place for pizza on campus, not only given its great location for me, but also fresh ingredients in more imaginative and successful juxtapositions. I love the veggie pizzas with artichokes, others with caramelized onions, and yet others with sauces and cheeses I wouldn’t have come up with myself, as far as pairings. I have yet to try the other offerings of Russo, the other hot entrées/​specials, as well as the beautiful desserts. Glad it’s so close by for me!

For the combination of price and food choice it’s pretty good. Lots of different pizza choices, from fennel as a topping to chicken. I’ve never seen fennel on a pizza, so that was pretty cool. Lots of great options from wraps/​salds (try the duck salad) to the meals. Good atmosphere and it’s pretty cheap for a lunch that isn’t fast food. Great place on campus.

They get an extra star since their pizza is good and it’s only $ 2.95. Get there early though, they run out quick and don’t make more until they run out.

Located in the Munger Residences adjacent to the Stanford Law School, the Russo Café has good food, lots of options and a nice atmosphere in which to enjoy it! One of the best deals in the place is a half a sandwich and a side salad for $ 5 and some change. I highly recommend the chicken pesto panini.
Russo has a nice selection of salads, pizzas and sandwiches. One tempting entrée looks so sinful, I recommend for the sake of your arteries that you share it with a friend —- the white cheddar macaroni bake. It is the size of a small loaf of bread and the top is covered with bacon! I saw a few these come out to waiting patrons and I swear I had an artery clog just looking at them! They sure looked good!!! I’ll tell you what, if you do two or more laps around the campus before ordering one of these bad boys, I won’t judge you if you eat one by yourself!

When I first scoped this joint out, I was inexorably drawn to the brick pizza oven like a moth to an open, 550 degree flame. On visit #2, for an actual meal, I controlled my urge and headed right to the hot meal/​deli/​soup area. This turned out to be a most fortuitous choice and resulted in an extra Unilocal star for the Russo Café.
For the laughably low, fac/​staff discounted price of $ 5.45, my wife and I feasted on a hearty turkey pot pie, a bowl of butternut squash soup, and a green bean side salad. All were served in lovely stoneware (some from England), with Oneida silverware, recycled brown napkins, and an elegant bamboo serving tray. These eco-​friendly dining implements accentuated the earth-​tone interior of the place, esp. the lovely and artfully-​installed tilework, countertops, and stone facades. It’s a very brown but also very pretty space with enough barstool-​style seating to accommodate the moderate-​to-​large crowd who had gathered here by 12 noon.
The food was simply and professionally prepared w/​out bells and whistles, or those little extras you would get at a sit-​down place (here it’s cafeteria-​style service). The turkey pot pie had a flaky, filo dough crust, some melted Swiss cheese below and a creamy interior with meat, celery, carrots, and onions. It lacked a green color and flavor contrast, like fresh peas or parsley, and a dash of ground nutmeg would have given the dish a bit of pizazz. But it was comforting winter fare, nonetheless.
Likewise, the butternut squash soup came in the familiar form of a pleasantly yellow purée with chicken stock and cream, but without nice treats like freshly-​chopped chives, toasted caraway seeds, or a dollop of silky-​sour crème fraîche. To be sure, the lines were long and the chefs had to keep things moving, but the need for speed in the food biz can be a source of some reduced culinary pleasure, as it was here.
The green bean salad was sensibly prepared with some crushed feta, sliced purple radishes, and dried cranberries and came served in a nice little cup. Staffers then zoomed in unobtrusively to take away our tray and free up space for the next wave of customers.
The only real downside here is that they serve Starbuck’s coffee at the little pastry and desert station instead of something more exotic (like the delicious Venezuelan coffees at Coupa Café in the Y2E2 Building). But presumably Starbuck’s outbid others for the contract, and that’s fine. But I ain’t given away my fifth star unless things change or the chocolate raspberry cake in the display case that beckoned to me is really, really good!

Chicken pesto sandwich with a side of feta’d green beans. Mm, tasty and again, only $ 4.99 (no tax for students!).
The place is a bustlin’ little joint now.

I tried this place out since I work on campus and am always looking for a new place to lunch. The ambiance is nice, and the menu is very wholesome and sophisticated. A good addition to the campus array of eateries.
I had the rotisserie chicken, pasta shells, and fingerling potatoes. The flavor of all three was quite good, and the potatoes were perfectly cooked. However, there were some temperature issues (chicken and potatoes both cold.). I paid the $ 5 «grand opening» special with drink, but think another dollar or two wouldn’t have been unfair.
My friend had pizza, which I tasted. While I admit I am a pizza snob, it was undeniably bad. Something about the sauce. Kinda had a barbecue tinge to it. Not good and overpriced. Hope they do another round of edits on that one.
A note on the eating area: the tables and booths in the back were a little cramped, but the double-​sided windy bar is pretty cool, so I’ll eat there in the future.
Also, once finished, I recommend going across the way to grab some gelato: