Roseval: Food, Wine & Service to Remember 

Roseval announced last week that it will be closing on July 31st. Luckily, this isn’t because Roseval has been unsuccessful; on the contrary, they can’t meet the incoming demands in the way they’d like to. Simone Tondo, the young Sardinian chef thrives on making people happy and charms his guests both in person and through his cooking. He helped Roseval climb quickly to the top of many must-eat lists, including getting awarded “Best Table” in Le Fooding’s 2013 guide not long after it opened.

The Roseval team will be sticking together wherever they go, so we can wait with giddy expectation to see what comes next for them.

The only thing I stand to add to the many comments about Roseval is that the most delightful part of the evening for our table was the sommelier, Martin Ho, who has a clearly infectious joy for wine and sharing small producers (and their stories) with others. He tends towards natural wines but knows that not everyone likes them, and is all about finding drinkable wines that people will enjoy.

Martin would come to our table with two bottles and give us the story on a guy who was a math teacher and then quit it all to produce natural wine, or this guy who is slightly crazy and works in a dark underground cave with no electricity and old Roman clay pots. His eyes light up when he starts talking about different obscure wines, and he spends his weekends going to visit small producers to get to know them, try their wine, and to add the most interesting wines to his list. We’ll take a bottle by the crazy guy. 

And then the math teacher.

The beautiful part of this exchange was that when Martin sensed how excited we were about the food and the wine, he told the kitchen, who graciously added two extra courses to the no-choice tasting menu. So what I’m saying is – be excited about the food, and sometimes people will sense you’re excited about it and reward you for your enthusiasm. Whereby more excitement will be given.  Also be a table of four girls, that probably helps.

I love nothing more than being at the table with food and wine lovers, who are being served great food and wine by a restaurant that clearly loves good food and wine. We are all in mutual appreciation of each other.

The food – one hit after another.

Mackerel with mint, yogurt, and raspberry

Steak tartare with cucumber (my favorite dish of the night)

Asparagus (you’re welcome for this revelatory description)

Smoked potato soup with prawns

Perfectly seared scallops with cucumber and radicchio

Veal and sesame

Sweetbreads with shitake mushrooms cabbage, and kale

This is cheese.

I eat too much cheese; I can’t possibly be expected to remember them all.

Panna cotta. Oh sweet beautiful panna cotta.

Chocolate heaven. Frothy cream. Crispy bits.

Can we look at it from enough angles? I think not.

Look, did I eat this meal over a month ago and forget most of the details? I think that’s clear based on my riveting descriptions of “asparagus” and “cheese”. But the impression stands long in my mind. Dish after delicious dish; not one of them a flop. Well tended to and cared for by the easy going sommelier, Martin, who made the entire evening more fun with his childlike excitement over recommending wines to us and the stories that came along with them.

So what’s the point of talking about a restaurant that will close at the end of July? Simone has confirmed pursuit of a new project and a new space, and the team will stay together, so we can expect the same care and attention, service and energy to follow them in their next chapter. Wherever they end up, we can look forward to an exciting new restaurant with this young and passionate team.

(August update: Roseval is now officially closed. Keep an eye on what they’ll do next!)