Behind the mullioned corner windows of a one-time antique store on Broadway in the Rondout, Kingstonโs most decorated chef is hiding in plain sight, playing baker in a backwards corduroy ball cap at the newly opened Rosie General. The spotโpart bakery, part Italian-meets-Jewish delicatessen, and part provisions marketโopened this spring and is rapidly garnering attention.
Raised in nearby Glasco, the second-oldest of four, chef-baker-butcher Anthony Sasso studied at the Institute for Culinary Education (ICE) in Manhattan before taking off to travel the Iberian peninsula and apprentice under some of the most renowned chefs in Spain. Back in New York, he stuck to Spanish cuisine, and the precocious, determined, and personable Sasso rose quickly. He began at Bar Jamon, but is perhaps best known for leading its sister restaurant Casa Mono to a Michelin star during his tenure as chef de cuisine.
Hit the Road Jack
Working within the same restaurant group, Sasso moved from Casa Mono to Mario Bataliโs La Sirena Ristorante in 2018. But as the group faced a rocky PR patch in 2019, Sasso left New York for new horizons and a much-needed break from kitchen life. โThe restaurant was open 12 to 12. It consumed every second of my lifeโmentally and physically,โ he says. โI knew when I was ready I would seek another project. But all signs pointed toward California.โ
Setting his sights on LA and the vast empire of Nancy Silverton (โthe queen of Western cuisineโ), Sasso bought his first car (a four-door jeep) and headed cross-country on an ambling culinary road trip. The journey, which he expected to take three weeks, stretched into five months as he stopped in almost 30 states. โI stopped to see every cook that ever left me,โ Sasso says. โI slept on their couches and went to their favorite restaurants. When you cook for that long and you hire that much staff, you lose that much staff also. I also stopped at every roadside shop, grocery, firework stand, everything that you could think of on the side of the road. I did it all.โ It was a new world of wide-open vistas, American landscapes, and sunsets, which Sasso hadnโt witnessed in over a decade, stuck night after night, as he was, in kitchens.
Silverton wasnโt able to take Sasso on immediately, so he found a gig baking bread during the graveyard shift at artisanal bakery Gjusta in Venice. Night after night, heโd show up at 2am, the only English-speaker in a crew of Mexican bakers slugging coffee and blasting Oaxacan bachata, only to be assigned the hardest tasks. No one cared about his Michelin stars or New York Times write-ups. โOver there, the only thing that mattered was, โHow good is he with his hands? Can he roll a bagel? Can he shape a baguette?โโ Sasso says. โThey wanted to see me fail. But they appreciated that I didnโt fail and kept coming back hungry to fit in with the team.โ
Despite this trial by fire, Sasso remembers the kitchen culture in LA fondly. โThe camaraderie and love is amazing,โ he says. โEveryone is your homie. You give everyone a pound. Everyone has each otherโs backs.โ He appreciated the process and the relatively slower pace of making bread. โI thought, โMaybe I can turn this into something better than the torture of what kitchens can beโthe self-abuse you put yourself through,โโ he recalls. โI just wanted to use good ingredients, not mess with too much. The Hudson Valley is the Napa of New York, and my parents have so much good will here. It made sense to come back home and look around. Then I realized Kingston was a booming town.โ
Landing back in Ulster County in February 2020, Sasso looked at photo studios, auto body shops, and gas stations, searching for a home for his next project. He eventually found what he was looking for in the spacious corner storefront at the intersection of Broadway and Abeel Street that used to house Skillypot Antiques (the sign is still out front).
โAfter every friend and rich person I know said no, I realized pretty quickly that it was going to just be me,โ Sasso says. He poured all his savings into the renovation, aided in construction by his contractor father and his sistersโ husbands. The historic tin ceilings are still intact, as are the original wood floors, except in the kitchen where he had to install tile. (The wood taken up was repurposed to make the banquettes, which sport red corduroy cushions that match Sassoโs ball cap.)
The Food
Rosie General, named for Sassoโs mom and staffed by him and his three sisters Andrea, Nicole, and Ashley, opened quietly on May 5. The sign reads โBakery, Butchery, Pickles, Pie.โ โ[The Rondout] has always been self-contained. People never made it up the hill. This whole place was meant to fill a void of what the neighborhood was missing,โ Sasso says. โWe built a grocery store and stocked eggs and sliced bacon. We brought in fresh produce.โ Nicole, an ICE-trained pastry chef, handles the sweet side of things, while Andrea does everything from espresso bar to checkout to cleaning. For the time being, Sasso is the only one in the kitchen, though he is hiring for every position.
Fresh baked breads include sourdough, baguettes, focaccia rossa, caraway rye, and walnut fig. But thatโs not all the ovens turn out: thereโs also bagels, pastries, pies, and fudge by the pound. Sasso calls the food menu a โgreatest hits of his life growing up in the area.โ The breakfast choices span classics from a bacon, egg, and cheese to an egg and chorizo burrito (an LA favorite of Sassoโs), while lunchtime picks include hearty offerings like the mortadella served with ricotta, pistachio, cherry bomb pepper, and Kingston honey on semolina hero bread. The turkey, a fast favorite with regulars, is served with baby greens, white onion, black pepper mayo, avocado ( a nod to his time in California), and deli vin on semolina hero. There are also soups and salads. Sasso, trained in whole-animal butchering by Josh Applestone of Fleischerโs, will be building out the meat case. He already smokes his own bacon, trout, and pastrami for Rosie.
At least for the time being, with only Sasso on the line, Rosie doesnโt do substitutions, so order carefully. โJust realize weeks and months and hours and days have gone into everything to get it to the table,โ Sasso says. โIf that is rushed, youโre losing the whole philosophy. I ran away from that life. Sit down, have a coffee, take in the scene. Hopefully people realize restaurant people are real people, putting extra love and effort and time. Iโm even handwriting every sign. All our bottles are hand-closed, all our jars are boiled and hand-sealed.โ
Raw Bar Ahead
Turning a gutted antique store into an up-to-code professional kitchen was no small feat. Sasso and his crew of family members had to add grease traps, hoods, ovens and grills, restrooms, and handicap access. The space has the cozy worn in look of a place thatโs been around forever. The long marble bar is silhouetted by handpainted Hungarian floor tiles. Motifs, materials, and color palettes thoughtfully repeat throughout.
And as much attention is given to packaging as to the interior. Brown Boston medicine bottles and craft paper packaging give the grocery section an old-school feel. In addition to drinks and provisions, Rosie sells house-made granola, pickles and kraut, fermented hot sauces, house-cured mustard, salted lemon preserves, giardiniera, and other deli staples.
โI wanted to open the grocery store my parents wouldโve gone to when they were 12, 13,โ says Sasso. โMusic selection, vibes, lighting, seating, everything is written on cardboard. Itโs the kind of place where you would’ve come in and gotten whatever you wanted and at the end of the week your parents would come in and pay the tab.โ
There are puzzles, chips, and Ziploc bags of goldfish below the counter at kid-eye-level; dog treats for pets, which are welcome in the shop; sweet treats for all ages; and soon beer and wine, both for to-go sales and for on-premise consumption. โBy September, weโll start with Happy Hour,โ Sasso says. โItโll be a bakery till 5, but from 3 or 4 oโclock on, oysters on the half shell and cocktails.โ The beer and wine lists will be small, curated, and mostly New York State-based, with selections from the Finger Lakes and Long Island.
The final stops of his road trip in coastal New England towns stuck strongly in Sassoโs mind and he wants to bring that vibe and menu to Rosie as he builds out the raw bar and dinner menu later this year. โWeโre not coastal, but next to the Hudson River there are things we can play with and be marine-adjacent,โ Sasso says. โSustainable fish and seafood and mackerel. Iโm not scared of making people less scared of foodโpigโs ears and tripe and razor clams. I can spoon-feed people those things and let them fall in love.โ
The interior of Rosie General has seating for 49, and theyโll add another 10 to 12 spots outdoors. โWe know the water we want to tread and have been treading,โ Sasso says. โWe want to stay at low tide for as long as we can.โ Itโll take some more staff for Rosie to hit cruising altitude, but Sasso is nothing if not seasoned in maneuvering a bustling kitchen. As for expansion in this era of franchising anything that smacks of authenticity, Sasso says that is unequivocally off the table.
โThere is not going to be a Rosie Part 2. No Rosie Rosendale, as perfect as that sounds, no Warren Street Rosie,โ Sasso says. โRosie is a product of Kingston because we are a product of Kingston. Whatever happens in these four walls, even if it crumbles, well, that is the way we want it to happen. Itโs one of a kind.โ
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This article appears in July 2022.
