Rosina’s Opens in Greenwich with Elevated Old School Italian

Owners Coby Blount and Jared Falco (top), beverage director Juan Meyer (bottom left), and Falco with chef de cuisine David Guimaraes.

There’s a rejuvenated buzz in Byram’s business district at the old digs once housed Mill Street Bar & Table and before it, Lolita Cucina.

The sounds of chatter and laughter, forks clanking and squealing against bowls, and hungry patrons slurping peppery, parm covered cacio e pepe are all coming from Rosina’s, a new Italian restaurant brought to you by a couple of young industry veterans you should recognize.

Rosina’s is the creation of Jared Falco and Coby Blount, who met at Fortina’s Armonk location in 2014. Falco helped run the show in the kitchen, while Blount managed front-of-house operations. “We’ve been trying to do something together for five years,” Falco says. “When we met, we clicked and always had mutual respect for each other. Even if we had it out, we could still be cool.”

Tortellini en brodo never looked so good

The pair had a dream to work together, they just needed it to come together. Separately, they kept honing their crafts in the restaurant industry. After his first stint at Fortina, Falco took up executive chef duties at Washington Prime, Amore, Speedy Romeo, and he’d return to Fortina to express his creativity as a co-culinary director. And there’s a chance you’ve come across Blount at SE Uncorked or East End to name a few.

Their friendship kept them in touch, and they’d occasionally entertain meetings with possible investors.

Octopus & Potato is an example of something you can’t get at your local red sauce joint

“They didn’t have what we wanted,” Falco says. They wanted Sophia Loren on the walls eating spaghetti and that’s not us.” Blount chimes in, “Some of them wanted to use other people’s ideas or rip them off completely,” he says. “It didn’t feel like what we wanted to do. Or they wanted to do something corny that we weren’t into.”

Thin and crispy doesn’t only apply to pizza, it works for an old school chicken cutlet. The breading is made in-house.

What they wanted to do was classic but refined Italian food. And although it took a few years to come up with the concept, it’s the food Falco has been cooking for over a decade. Think along the lines of riffs on traditional pasta dishes, big salads, thin and crispy pizzas, and seasonal vegetable small plates. They also knew they wanted to be a neighborhood spot with affordable prices but with a handful of indulgent offerings if the mood should strike you.

Originally, Falco wanted a small, 60-seat, higher end restaurant. Rosina’s is bigger with a lot of affordable choices. No pasta is more than $19. However…”We’ll put truffle on anything you want,” Falco says. Just like on these duck fat potatoes.

They had the concept, a space, and a local investor in Frank Carpentieri—who bought the Garden Catering business way back when—but they didn’t have a name for the restaurant.

“We had three different names,” Falco explains. “Rosina is Frank Carpentieri’s mother’s name. Frank is Francesca Carpentieri’s father and Francesca is marrying Coby this year.”

Pizza, pizza! Rosina’s menu might expand soon to eight pizzas and nine pastas.

Blount went on to spill that Rosina was born in Palermo but moved to Port Chester when she was 15 years old and lived in the same house by the Life Savers building for about 75 years until she passed away earlier in 2021. “She loved to garden and loved to cook,” Blount says. “We racked our brains thinking of a name. We knew what the menu and cocktail would be like, but we were stumped on a name. It was Frank who said, ‘Rosina’s!’ She liked to eat and cook, and the name says ‘Italian,’ and it feels inviting. As soon as we stopped overthinking it, it came to us, and I’m happy it did.”

Not only is the name “Rosina’s” a fitting tribute, but the inside décor is as well. Falco mentioned that the place had good bones already, but they changed the color scheme from blue to green, covered up the previous tenant’s barnwood accents, and removed the oyster bar. Fresh paint, drywall, and a char broiler in the kitchen were added. And on the walls? Old black and white family photos that were recovered from Rosina’s house and from Francesca’s mom’s house. “We’ve already had a few people come in and recognize the faces in the photos,” Falco says. “Christian Petroni’s dad, Lorenzo, came in and was like, ‘I know that guy! And that guy! And wait, that’s Joe from Joe’s Quality Meats!’”

If you didn’t pick up on it, Rosina’s is open and quietly did so in mid-August.

‘Nduja arancini. Kinda classic, kinda not.

And in the kitchen, the team of cooks—including chef de cuisine and his longtime friend David Guimaraes—are firing up Falco’s recipes that he has spent 10-plus years cooking. Bubbly mozzarella on top of eggplant rotolo in a deep red sauce and a pounded thin chicken cutlet with lemon are classics while ‘nduja sausage arancini with thick, pungent pecorino cream sauce is Falco’s creativity on an Italian staple. 

We told you there’d be seasonal stuff happening here! Ricotta stuffed squash blossoms…with black truffle, because we also told you they’d put truffle on EVERYTHING if that’s how you get down.

The menu from there carries on with veggies dishes and salads that’ll surely change as the seasons do, but potatoes are still a vegetable, and if you like yours fried in duck fat, don’t miss these. And they’re happy to shave black truffle all over your spuds if you’d like.

As for the pizza, the intro menu has five pies (tomato & onion, clam, margherita, meatball, and sausage) all of the “New York style thin & crispy,” according to Falco’s description. He also said he’s still tinkering with the dough and with a brand-new PizzaMaster electric oven to achieve the best possible product. So far, he’s gotten pizza advice from Rob Krauss (formerly of Fortina), Matthew Watson of Grigg Street Pizza, and pizza consultant, Anthony Falco, who brought Roberta’s Pizza into the mainstream.

The “so far signature dish” of rigatoni

Aside from the entrées of veal Milanese, branzino, salmon, dry-aged ribeye, and chicken scarp, Falco’s focus for Rosina’s was always pasta. “It was our biggest goal,” he says about the pasta. “It’s handmade every day and it’s always gonna be this way. If there’s a signature dish, people are saying it’s the rigatoni.”

Lasagna verde! Though Falco spilled that the menu “won’t always stay like this,” we’re hoping this is here forever.

That rigatoni dish involves braised, shredded pork, escarole, tomatoes, and fork tender white beans. It’s a homey bowl of pasta perfect for a chilly evening. There’s just as much soul in silky pappardelle with a creamless Bolognese and then there’s lasagna verde and all its cheesy, saucy layers with that crisp noodle effect around the edges. You’ll feel like you scored that corner piece every time.

Peep the Rosina’s rose logo stamped on the clear cube

And then there’s the booze. One thing Falco and Blount knew is they needed a bar program to match the food, so they brought in another respected friend in beverage director Juan Meyer, formerly of The Spread and East End. “I’ve been at Juan’s bar every week for years when he was at East End and he worked with Coby there,” Falco says. Blount follows, “We knew we wanted him as part of the team. We threw the bait out and tried to reel him in. We couldn’t do it without him. It wouldn’t be as good without Juan.”

Meyer’s imprint on Rosina’s isn’t only a curated list of mostly Italian wines and local-ish IPAs, it’s a serious craft cocktail program. “Classic Italian cocktails are my inspiration,” Meyer says. “Aperol spritz on the beach, a strong negroni. It’s a mix of spritzers and strong drinks with my own wrench thrown into the mix with craft cocktails that don’t exist in the area and handmade clear ice.”

Early on, Blount, Falco, and the Rosina’s team are enjoying the high of a new spot and by the looks of it, they’ll keep riding that wave and having fun. “We’re so grateful for all the support, opinions, and help we’ve gotten from our own industry,” Falco says. “Coby and I are here for our staff, and we keep it light. We listen to music in the kitchen. I want Rosina’s to be our home.”

 Their hospitality, combined with a soul satisfying take on Italian cuisine will make you feel at home, too.

230 Mill Street; Greenwich
203.681.2376; https://www.rosinasrestaurant.com/