It’s 30 minutes after opening on a Friday night and Rocco’s, North Loop’s tiny new Italian restaurant, already has a wait. Trendy dine-in hopefuls spill onto the few tables outside in the makeshift waiting area, while those in the know head to the blessed air conditioning and crisp white wines of next-door plant shop and wine bar Flourish. Though the place has been open just over a month, people are already sporting Rocco’s merch. The commotion from the dining room escapes every time the doors open and another person joins the waiting crowd outside — chef/co-owner Nicholas Ford and co-owner Wade McElroy have a certified hit on their hands.
The inspiration for Rocco’s comes from Ford’s upbringing in a big Italian-American family in the Northeast, complete with his nonna and great-grandmother making fresh sauce and tortellini at the table for Sunday dinner every week. “It was this wild and energetic gathering of people,” Ford told Eater. “And I was like, man, I should run a restaurant this way — make it warm, cozy, and hospitable, with controlled chaos.”
Ford moved to Austin basically sight-unseen to open trendy McGuire Moorman Lambert restaurants Sammie’s and Favorite Pizza. But with Rocco’s, he and McElroy want to create more of a neighborhood restaurant that is casual in approach, but not in food quality. He chose the North Loop area to give neighbors a place to dress up and go to dinner without going downtown or making reservations months ahead. (Rocco’s is walk-ins only.)
Those who knew the Rocco’s location as Bun Belly and then Playground ATX will find it completely unrecognizable. When Ford first saw the space, half the ceiling was hanging down. But, working with a couple of handymen and a Pinterest board of Australian Italian restaurants (which Ford says have the unpretentious vibe he was going for), the team miraculously created a 55-seat restaurant with the Northeast’s bustling energy and Ford’s homey touches. There’s a miniscule bar seating area and a few tables, but most of the space is cozy dark booths adorned with pillows. Large plates of housemade pasta like lumache with corn and rigatoni alla vodka are overseen by portraits of Ford’s actual family hanging on the walls.
“I thought Austin was really missing like a good neighborhood trattoria: the low ceilings, the big booths, the kind of moody atmosphere that we created,” said Ford. He hopes to create more neighborhood-centric restaurants by repurposing available spaces and considering what cuisine a particular area might be lacking.
Rocco’s has a simple but effective dinner menu: appetizers like fried mozzarella and a meatball, a few salads (the Caesar is popular), large-format pastas, and cannoli for dessert. The fried risotto appetizer is a family recipe from a great-uncle who owns an arancini cart. The wine list is all Italian except one Sangiovese from Marfa, and there are a few beer options, though Ford might add cocktails in the future.
During Rocco’s opening, Ford’s dedication to a family-style restaurant was put to the test. His parents were in town visiting and, instead of enjoying the fruits of their son’s labor, his father worked the bar while his mother played host and bussed tables. “I think they had a different idea of what their night was gonna be,” laughs Ford. But after growing up cooking in the kitchen with his mom, he’s proud to show them his ode to Northeast neighborhood Italian joints.
“I wanted to recreate that nostalgia for myself too,” says Ford. “I call Austin home and I hope to take my last few breaths here, so I wanted to be able to create something that reminded me of where I’m from — and be able to show it off to everybody else too.”
Dining and Cooking