la storia
In 1992, Carmela and Giuseppe Rossi opened a dining room on Frederick Douglass Boulevard with thirty-eight seats and a menu that changed with the market. Thirty-three years later, their daughter Maria leads the kitchen. The menu still changes. The welcome hasn't.
il ristorante
Forty-four seats. Exposed brick. The light comes from candles and a pressed-tin ceiling that's been there longer than the restaurant has.
We have two rooms — the main dining room, and the garden room that opens each summer. Both have hosted thirty years of proposals, birthdays, and the kind of Thursday dinners that become the ones you remember.
la cucina
The kitchen has been hers since 2009.
Maria trained in Bologna before returning to Harlem. She learned from her mother that Italian cooking is about restraint — what you leave out matters as much as what you put in.
She's kept two things unchanged since the day she took over the kitchen: the Sunday ragù, and the cacio e pepe her father put on the menu in 1997. Everything else earns its place weekly.
Signature
Cacio e Pepe — on the menu since 1997
prenotazioni
We take reservations by phone and through OpenTable. Walk-ins are welcome when space allows — we'll always do our best.
Hours