When you walk into Caruso’s Grocery, it feels like you’ve been there before – and that’s the point. The standalone restaurant at The Roost food hall on Capitol Hill is modeled after classic red sauce Italian joints, replete with red banquettes, black-and-white pictures of Italian icons hanging on the walls, and Sinatra pumping on the sound system. With 65 seats inside and another 20 on the patio, it feels cozy, comforting, and welcoming.
The idea for Caruso’s Grocery was born out of Neighborhood Restaurant Group owner Michael Babin’s pining for a red sauce joint, like the ones he frequented as a kid, and an emulation of his family’s own Italian market in Louisiana, which lent its name to this new venture. For chef-partner Matt Adler, who also oversees operations at the Roost, the inspiration is deeply personal. He traces the restaurant’s DNA directly back to Scoozi in Garnerville, New York, an old school red sauce spot owned by his father, Larry, who served as its chef. It opened when Adler was in high school, so he went to work in the kitchen, a job he held for the next few years. Even when he went off to attend the Culinary Institute of America, he came home to work there on the weekends.
“I fell in love with it,” he says. “I thought the waitresses who were smoking cigarettes and drinking beer were really cool. The energy was really great. It was fun.”
After graduation, he spent years working for James Beard Award-winning chefs known for their Italian cuisine, Michael White and Michael Schlow. But at Caruso’s Grocery, Adler wants to forgo the boundary pushing he sometimes did in the past.
“I want to cook classic food and I want to do it well,” he says. “That’s more exciting to me than saying, ‘Here’s my interpretation of a chicken parmesan,’ which, honestly, no one gives a shit about. People just want a really good chicken parm that’s properly pounded chicken, well-seasoned, properly fried, with really good tomatoes made into a sauce, and good cheese.”
As Adler looks over the menu for Caruso’s Grocery, he estimates 85 percent of the recipes are rooted in the ones he learned at Scoozi. He does tweak tradition when necessary. Take the garlic bread. Italian semolina is slathered with herb butter, speckled with thinly sliced garlic, and sprinkled with seasoning mix punctuated with oregano, fennel, and red pepper flakes. It’s complemented by cheese sauce forged from gorgonzola, pecorino, asiago, and parmesan. Adler’s father used to pour it over the bread, creating “a big wet sticky delicious mess,” but Adler chose to keep it on the side because he thought his clientele would prefer to eat it as a dip instead.
Unlike his father, Adler makes some of the pastas ($18.75-$23.50), including the twirl of bucatini sauced with meaty Neapolitan and topped with a cloud of whipped ricotta. Another standout pasta is the linguini dotted with a mix of fresh and canned clams, the latter adding a wallop of brine to the sauce.
Hearty-sized entrees ($22.50-$38.25) will leave most diners with leftovers to enjoy the next day. Case in point is the hefty pork chop dressed up with peppers, tomatoes, and onions, and accompanied by crispy fried fingerling potatoes tossed in parmesan and roasted garlic. There’s a notable piccata, not made with veal or chicken, but trout, arriving awash in rich lemon butter caper sauce.
The chef wanted Caruso’s Grocery to have memorable desserts. “Too often these days chefs forget about the pastry side of things and owners want to turn tables anyway,” Adler says.
Sweet offerings include a made-to-be-shared sundae built on spheres of house-made chocolate and vanilla ice creams finished with a cascade of toppings: salted peanuts, caramel corn, hot fudge, and crests of whipped cream. There’s also cheesecake modeled on the classic New York style showcased at Junior’s in Brooklyn, by-the-book tiramisu, and crème brûlée accented with blood orange and vanilla.
To accompany the final course, the restaurant makes its own digestifs, including amaro, limoncello, and sambuca ($9 each). They’re the passion project of spirits director Nick Farrell, who put together a menu of classic-minded cocktails ($10 each) for the bar. The most unconventional – the antipasti dirty martini made with tomato infused gin and olive brine, garnished with ball of mozzarella – has turned out to be the best seller.
Adler is happy with the feedback he has received from diners so far. “People have these emotional experiences when they get the food,” he says. “And it’s not like when you eat at Per Se or you eat your first bite of Ferran Adrià’s liquid olive. This food brings people back to experiences they had as a child.”
However, his father still hasn’t had the opportunity to try the restaurant. “I’m confident he will think it’s not as good as Scoozi was, so I’m in no hurry to bring him down,” says Adler with a laugh.
Caruso’s Grocery is located at 1401 Pennsylvania Ave SE. Open Wednesdays-Saturdays 5 p.m.-10 p.m. and Sundays 5 p.m.-9:30 p.m.
