Osteria Giulia

Rob Rossi cooks Italian the narrow way. At Osteria Giulia, his dining room on Avenue Road in Yorkville, the menu does not try to tour the whole country — it stays on the northern coast, in Liguria and the seafood-leaning kitchens of the Italian shoreline, and lets that restraint do the work. Stracchino-stuffed flatbread, hand-braided Sardinian pasta, crudo dressed in citrus and good oil: the choices are specific, and they read as a point of view rather than a survey. The room is built for a planned dinner — polished, reservation-led, chosen on purpose rather than stumbled into.

The clearest statement of that focus is the Focaccia di Recco. It is not the soft, dimpled bread most diners picture. Recco's version, from the Ligurian town that gives it its name, is thin to the point of translucence — two sheets of unleavened dough pulled tissue-thin and sealed around molten stracchino, then baked hot and finished with olio novello and sea salt. Ordering it first is the right move; it frames everything that follows. The small plates around it pull in the same direction: Cantabrian anchovies with crisp sourdough and smoked butter, warm brioche with St. Brigid's butter and sea salt, a chef's selection of crudo over ice. From there the kitchen builds toward the luxury end — Vitello Tonnato, veal carpaccio under albacore tuna with caper leaves and lemon; Burrata e Caviale, Puglian burrata with Italian caviar and Sardinian asfodelo honey; and raw scarlet prawns dressed in citrus oil, shallots and bergamot.

Pasta is where the coastal idea becomes a throughline. Lorighittas al Mare braids a Sardinian shape by hand and dresses it with wild squid, bay scallops, chili, garlic and anchovy; Spaghetti ai Gamberi leans on wild spot prawns, citrus and prawn butter; Risotto al Granchio works Carnaroli rice around Pacific snow crab and sherry. Even Trofie al Pesto, the one obligatory Ligurian gesture, arrives with pesto al mortaio, pounded in a mortar the old way. Only Paccheri alla Genovese steps off the coast, braising lombata down into slow-cooked onions and pecorino. The seafood is otherwise the menu's logic, carried from the raw plates through the pasta and out to the grill, where turbot and whole red snapper come off the fire with little more than salsa verde, lemon and oil.

Rossi opened Osteria Giulia in 2021 with David Minicucci, according to local reporting at the time — the same partnership behind Giulietta, the College Street restaurant that built Rossi's name in the city. Giulia is the quieter, more grown-up sibling: where Giulietta runs on pizza and volume, Giulia is seafood, handmade pasta and a slower dinner pace. The narrowing is deliberate, and it has been noticed. The Michelin Guide has recognized the result with a star, the kind of standing that puts Giulia on the short list for a particular kind of night out.

The drink list is built to match. Here the wine, the grappa, the amaro and a proper cocktail menu are meant to be part of the meal rather than an afterthought at the end, and the coastal Italian bottles give a table latitude to build dinner around the food instead of beside it. When a group wants a centre to the table, the kitchen sets out shareable mains — a bone-on prime striploin for two, a grilled rack of lamb with wild fennel — while a larger party has its own route through the Convivio format, hosted for eight to ten. Dessert holds the line with a dark-chocolate Tiramisu alla Giulia built on espresso and rum zabaglione. It is an expensive dinner, and an unhurried one; the kind a table books a week out and lingers over until the kitchen closes at eleven.