The first thing to note about Rose Marie, a lively, comfortable bar and restaurant that recently opened on Lorimer Street, is that there are no tacos on the menu. Which, true, is not an unusual occurrence for any given restaurant, but I say that because Dave and Krystiana Rizo, the couple running Rose Marie, have spent the last five years cranking out some of the best tacos in town at Yellow Rose, their Tex-Mex hotspot in the East Village.
“There were a lot of specials I was running at Yellow Rose that would get traction on social media, but then people would come in and just stick with the tacos and margaritas, which is totally what they should be doing! But over the years, I kind of wrote a whole menu that had nothing to do with the Yellow Rose concept. So we found this place for all of that,” Chef Dave explains.
(Photo by Scott Lynch)
Rose Marie is the couple’s first restaurant in their home borough of Brooklyn (they originally hail from San Antonio, but have lived in the County of Kings for about a decade now), and they bring a pleasingly homey, even old-fashioned, look to the space. White lace curtains hang in the windows. The big front area, where you find the bar and multiple cozy seating possibilities, is decked out in spiffy wallpaper that wouldn’t look out of place in one of the city’s old-money haunts. And the back dining room sports a pair of murals depicting vaguely decadent, bygone-era parties that, Dave said, are kind of an ode to Bemelmans Bar.
Rose Marie, by the way, is named after a character in Bob Dylan’s “Going to Acapulco,” one of Dave’s all-time favorite songs. “It has such a vibe to it,” he said. “So I thought, what if we built a restaurant around what the song looks like, what the song sounds like, and go from there?” Fine with me, buddy. As Dylan sings in the second verse, “It’s a wicked life but what the hell / The stars ain’t falling down.”
Patty melt, $17 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
The food at Rose Marie skews Southern, but is really mostly about, as Dave put it, “just cooking for the day, based on what’s available, what we’re feeling like, what the temperature of the place is… getting back to basics.” That said, there do seem to be some constants in the early going, like the juicy patty melt stuck between slabs of sourdough, plenty of well-griddled onions and melted cheddar oozing out, a jaunty pickled green tomato toothpicked on top.
Steak tartare, $16 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
Heritage pork chop, $26 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
Other meaty treats include steak tartare served with anchovy and little gems, a chicken cutlet covered in slaw, and an extravagantly thick pork chop, pre-sliced for easy sharing and plopped atop saucy ceci piccolini (basically tiny chickpeas), with a swirl of heavily pesto-ed fennel shavings completing the package.
Head-on shrimp cocktail, $12 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
Sprouting cauliflower with caballero beans, $11 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
Highly recommended as a drinking snack is the head-on shrimp cocktail, a stack of crustaceans that hits the table rare and slick with oil. Several salads of just-picked greenmarket goodies, sprouting cauliflower on a bed of beans, and a saltine-crusted flounder with Carolina rice round out the savory options.
Yellow cake with strawberry and mascarpone, $15 (Photo by Scott Lynch)
For dessert, you’re getting semolina cake smothered in whipped mascarpone, syrupy strawberries, and vanilla ice cream. Except if, as it happened on the night we went, there’s a semolina cake mishap, and then you’re getting an equally delicious yellow cake smothered in the same. Either way, you’re a winner.
Booze plays a big part in the Rose Marie fun, with $17 cocktails, $16 spritzes, and a nightly frozen drink flowing alongside a bunch of beers, shots, and a wine list with lots of options for under $80 a bottle.
“Opening restaurants take a lot out of you,” said Dave during Rose Marie’s opening week. “So we’re feeling pretty tired right now, but also very happy. Once you’re in service, once you’re cooking food… that’s why we all started working in restaurants in the first place. That’s the part that’s exciting and fun. You just open the doors up and see what happens next.”
Rose Marie is located at 524 Lorimer Street, at the corner of Ainslie Street, and is currently open 5:00 p.m. to midnight daily
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