For two foodservice and hospitality veterans, the newly renovated and refreshed Rosalynn’s Bistro and Catering in Rockland is simply a further evolution of their dedication to serving their customers – and getting back on track following Covid-19.
Co-owners Alana and Peter Paolino have operated the restaurant, with the same Royal Plaza location at 928 Laporte Road, since 2010, and their new menu continues its focus on a key touchstone that has shaped the last 14 years.
“We always define our food as being homemade, like home cooking that you don’t have to cook. We take pride in making our own pastas in-house and making our own sauces. It’s the time we take for our customers,” says Alana.
She takes care of the front of house, while Peter, Rosalynn’s chef, runs the kitchen; they met while working at a Sheraton hotel 25 years ago, and, she says, “grew up in the industry.”
The decision to make the leap to opening their own restaurant and catering business was drawn out of virtually a lifetime in the hospitality sector.
“We have always liked being in the business,” Alana says, “But doing the work, we decided it was time to do our own thing. We can have more control of what we like and what we cook and how we serve. It just kind of evolved from there.”
The restaurant’s name is a portmanteau of their two daughters’ names; now young adults pursuing their own education and careers, they spent a lot of their youth at Rosalynn’s and still help occasionally. The youngest daughter worked alongside her father in the kitchen during the pandemic.
Peter’s parents immigrated to Canada from Abruzzo, and it is a southern-Italian family-style cooking that has been prominent on the Rosalynn’s menu. Alana says Peter’s mother “cooks incredibly well” and has passed down family recipes that they have reimagined and reconfigured for restaurant service.
That means classic dishes like tortellini, alfredo, cannelloni, fettuccine, Parmigiana, Bolognese, mushroom ravioli and prosciutto tagliatelle appear on the menu. Zia Marcello spicy penne is not named for a Paolino aunt but rather a regular customer, a testament to Rosalynn’s attention to its guests.
Sauces and most of the pastas are made in-house; a short rib dish braises for four hours.
“We put a lot of time into preparing our food,” says Alana who says they currently have a staff of five and serve breakfast on Saturdays.
However, even with the renovations and a new menu focussed on Italian favourites that launched about three weeks ago, Alana’s Cape Breton Island-background touches down often on the stoves with east coast-inspired ingredients and dishes like Maritime baked cod or haddock, linguine with scallops, Atlantic salmon and fish cakes.
The dining room floor plan of the new Rosalynn’s space is divided with moveable partition walls that offer flexibility to accommodate different sized groups, she says, and creates spaces that are more private and intimate.
With white and blue layered table linens and pyramid-fold napkins, the ambiance could possibly be one of an upscale restaurant – but Alana says Rosalynn’s is still a casual and relaxed experience that stems from their training and hotel hospitality background.
“Don’t be thrown by the tablecloths. It’s still a family restaurant, so I laugh when people say, oh, it’s so fancy. But it’s not. It’s just put together and comfortable.”
The menu bears that out, too, with a few comfort-food dishes such as diner-style liver with caramelized onions, crispy bacon, vegetables and a rich gravy, and Beau’s beer-battered fish and chips.
Catering remains a strong segment of the business which they tailor to the individual requirement of the customer, whether table service or buffet style and along a range of price lines.
When Covid-19 hit, it changed the industry worldwide. For Rosalynn’s, like for many restaurants, it meant focussing on takeout business, an element of which remains to this day.
“We prepare takeout meals that people can order one week online and pick up the next week, and everything is already cooked and ready to go. All you have to do is warm it up.”
It is perhaps an indication that even now the restaurant business has not returned to normal, she adds.
“During Covid, we lost customers and some even died sadly. The four of us had buckle down here as a family to keep going. But it’s different now, still a bit rough because people aren’t back to work like they normally were. They’ve gotten out of habit of getting out to eat. So, we still find a difference.”
She says that since the shutdowns and social distancing protocols were lifted, they had to advertise for the first time in more than a decade.
“That was a new change for us.”
As is the case for many restaurants in both smaller and larger centres, the sense of family starts with the business itself and grows to become an extended family of customers.
“I say when you’re here, you’re family,” Alana says. “We have lots of family and we get to know people quite well. My kids have grown up with families who have been coming in for years and just kind of stayed with us and grew up with us. We’ve taken care of them over the years.”
After decades in the industry, the Paolino pair had clear plans before Covid-19 knocked those off course. Even a year or so after the pandemic, Alana says they are still re-building.
“We had a lot of plans before Covid for growing the restaurant. But for now, we’re looking to go back to where it used to be. That’s our first plan.”
If massive interruptions like the pandemic dismantled the usual mechanisms of a business, and forced some to close, it’s hard to see any sort of silver lining, but there were brighter spots for this family restaurant, run by a family.
“We appreciate people,” Alana says. “We always have, but we really appreciate more people than we even knew about before. I guess we took that a little bit for granted before. Now we don’t.”
That said, Peter adds that their customers can look ahead to Rosalynn’s big New Year’s Eve event.
“We’re doing a six-course dinner,” he says. “I haven’t finished the menu yet, but I’m working on it. Working on these renovations took a lot longer than we anticipated.”
Food writer Andrew Coppolino lives in Rockland. He is the author of “Farm to Table” and co-author of “Cooking with Shakespeare.” Follow him on Instagram @andrewcoppolino.
