Rolo's – the wood fire that built a Ridgewood institution

On a corner of Onderdonk Avenue in Ridgewood, Queens, Rolo's turns a modest storefront into one of the borough's more talked-about wood-fired kitchens. The restaurant opened on 13 January 2021, the work of a quartet of Gramercy Tavern alumni — chefs Howard Kalachnikoff, Rafiq Salim and Paul Wetzel, together with partner Stephen Maharam — who built the place around simple, seasonal cooking rather than spectacle. It holds a Bib Gourmand in the MICHELIN Guide, the distinction for cooking of real quality at what MICHELIN itself calls a moderate spend, putting Rolo's among the handful of Queens addresses recognised for value over ceremony. Inside, a wood fire does most of the talking: it bakes the bread, chars the vegetables, and finishes everything from a pork T-bone to a double cheeseburger that regulars know to chase before the kitchen runs out of it for the night.

01The room and the setting

Rolo's occupies a 2,400-square-foot corner space that chefs Howard Kalachnikoff and Rafiq Salim designed together with Ridgewood contractor Kermit Westergaard. The main dining room toward the back of the building is anchored by a large wood-burning stove and an open cook's kitchen, while the front room works as a bar with banquette and table seating. Time Out has called it a cute corner spot, casual and neighbourhood-y, but extra-special all around, evidenced by its popularity.

Even the name is a piece of local history: Westergaard's dog, Rolo, was already a neighbourhood favourite, so the team made him the restaurant's namesake rather than invent something fancier. The MICHELIN Guide's own facility notes list a terrace and an interesting wine list among the draws, alongside air conditioning for the height of a New York summer.

02The chefs

Rafiq Salim grew up between cultures — a Dutch mother and an Indonesian father — before his family moved from the Netherlands to Coral Springs, Florida, when he was seven, bringing a global pantry of recipes with them. After a brief career in finance and an eight-month sabbatical travelling South America, he enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, working weekend brunch shifts at Public in New York under Brad Farmerie and later at Bouchon in Yountville, California, under Philip Tessier. In 2011 he joined Gramercy Tavern, spending six years working his way from line cook to sous chef, and in 2023 was named a StarChefs New York Rising Star.

Insider tip

Book via Resy for up to seven; walk-ins welcome at the bar and a few tables.

Howard Kalachnikoff arrived at Rolo's as chef de cuisine of Gramercy Tavern, and in 2017 he and Salim first pitched the idea of their own restaurant to Gramercy regular Stephen Maharam — though the pandemic pushed the opening back four years. The space was finally purchased in January 2021 by Kalachnikoff, Salim and Maharam, with chef Paul Wetzel joining as the fourth Gramercy Tavern alumnus behind the project.

03The cooking

Everything at Rolo's runs through the wood fire. The dinner menu opens with wood-fired polenta bread served three ways — olive oil and flaky salt, sesame and wild oregano, or Calabrian chili butter — before moving through snacks such as pickled carrots and housemade mortadella, small plates like hamachi crudo with Asian pear and morita chili, and pastas including a two-sheet lasagna verde bolognese and sweet potato and brown butter cappelletti.

The kitchen runs its own beef programme, taking in a side of New York State grass-fed beef each week that is butchered and ground in-house for the dry-aged steaks and the restaurant's cult double cheeseburger — a limited run that, by the kitchen's own admission, is sometimes gone by the end of the first seating.

04What to order

Start with the wood-fired polenta bread and the Calabrian chili butter, then share the two-sheet lasagna verde bolognese or the roasted mushroom ziti with ricotta salata and vin cotto. From the wood fire, the pork T-bone comes with plums, Castelrosso and a black pepper sherry honey, while the wagyu beef skirt steak and the whole wood-fired trout almondine suit bigger appetites. Resy's own guide singles out the two-sheet lasagna verde for dinner, the brunch dish known as Mrs. Crispy, and the double cheeseburger — advising diners to arrive early if they want a shot at the burger.

At brunch, poached eggs with spiced tomato sauce or the Mrs. Crispy — poached eggs, ham, cheddar and polenta bread — sit alongside a wagyu skirt steak plate and crispy potatoes done two ways, including a 'war style' version.

05Wine and drinks

The bottle list leans toward small producers rather than big names: a Tarragona cava, a Burgundy aligoté, a Finger Lakes riesling from Ria's Wines, a Sicilian catarratto, Tuscan sangiovese and a Rivetto nebbiolo from the Langhe sit alongside a Zinfandel blend from Ridge in Sonoma. Corkage is charged at $50 per 750ml bottle or $100 per magnum for anything not already on the list.

Cocktails range from a straightforward White Negroni and tonic to house inventions like the Carrot Drink, built on chili-infused mezcal, carrot and lemon juice, and a Banana Old Fashioned finished with banana liqueur and crème de cacao; a non-alcoholic vermouth and soda is also on the menu.

06When to go and booking

As published on its own site in October 2026, Rolo's serves dinner Sunday to Thursday from 5 to 10pm and Friday and Saturday from 5 to 11pm, with weekend brunch Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 3pm and a Saturday-Sunday drinks window from 3 to 5pm. Reservations run exclusively through Resy for parties of up to seven, though the bar and a handful of tables are always held back for walk-ins.

Ridgewood sits on the line between Brooklyn and Queens, giving the neighbourhood the feel of both boroughs at once. The nearest subway options are the M train to Forest Avenue or the L train to Wyckoff Avenue.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.