Restaurant Vets Cook Up Mexican at Rosie’s in the East Village

When Marc Meyer and Vicki Freeman, the duo behind Cookshop, Hundred Acres, and Vic’s open a new spot in the East Village, you don’t ask questions. You head there immediately. Meyer and Freeman’s new Mexican spot, Rosie’s, serves fresh and thoughtful dishes that Eat Up New York certainly approves of.

The Chefs behind Rosie’s Angel Andrade and Chester Gel Meyer, are cooking up a storm and creating memorable dishes using traditional techniques. This means they take the time to grind fresh masa for tortillas and cook on a comal, a flat griddle located directly in the middle of the restaurant, for your viewing pleasure as you eat. The 90-seat dining room was designed to resemble an open-air market, which is ideal for summer, but I’m curious as to what will happen come winter.

Menu Tour at Rosie’s

As we were seated, our waiter helped us understand the menu, fully breaking down each section and giving us table recommendations on how and what we should order. The middle section, Antojitos (little whims), are small and most come with two per order and are great for sharing. The rest of Rosie’s menu consists of snacks, salads, tacos, and larger entrees that also make great for trying lots of dishes with the rest of your party.

For our first experience at Rosie’s, we were all quite hungry and immediately ordered the chips and salsa and a large guacamole. Because how can you resist either at a Mexican restaurant? The chips are perfectly crisp and you can tell they’re homemade, enhanced with the right balance of salt and seasoning. The guac is fresh, flavorful, and has a great consistency and texture, and I really enjoyed the julienne radishes on the top for a crispness and crunch. We decided it made the most sense to order the rest of the meal as a table and chose one Antojitos and two larger entrees.  We went with the quesadilla and were not disappointed. This is not your average, kitchen stove-top, quesadilla. No, Rosie’s quesadillas are hot and fresh off the comal, stuffed with Oaxaca, Mexican style cheese, with incredible flavors oozing with every bite. This small portion won’t last long, so make sure you savor every incredible moment of it.

Entrees at Rosie’s

Instead of the tacos on the menu, we decided to order two entrees, which are both served with fresh tortillas, allowing you to create tacos on your own. We went with the first fish option, Pescado En Su Jugo, and the carne asada. Both portions are large and give you about two tacos each when sharing with a party of four.

The corn is stone ground in the basement. The comal, the tortilla-making station in the center of Rosie’s, is where the antojitos (little whims) are made, from homemade masa dough (from the corn ground in the basement). Chef Meyer, travelling once in Michoacán, asked for hot sauce, and this is what he got: a dark-brown salsa made from peanuts, pumpkin seeds, and chili oil. It’s a strange concoction, an accompaniment to baked cheese crisps in a snack called “chicharrón de queso,” and it turns out to be the most surprising, and most wonderful, dish of the evening.

Rosie’s gets packed for dinner, when girls’-night posses descend for watermelon margaritas and guacamole. The waitresses wear short, calico-print dresses, and have the spirit of the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. The mesmerizing room brings to mind a seaside vacation—all teals and pale blues, walls retracted for veranda-style dining, even if the breezes aren’t Gulf or Pacific but Second Avenue.

Rosie’s – Website
29 East 2nd Street, NY, NY