ROCA Pizza eyes fall opening date
By Sam Catanzaro
Pacific Palisades will be getting a new pizzeria in the coming months.
Rick Rosenfield, a co-founder of California Pizza Kitchen, along with his wife Esther, has announced the opening of two new ROCA restaurant locations at The Palisades Village and The Waterside in Marina Del Rey, coming respectively in fall 2022 and early 2023.
Serving as a prelude to the upcoming new locations, the concept’s pop-up at The Americana at Brand in Glendale introduced ROCA’s elevated fast-casual interpretation of Roman-style street food pizza “al taglio,” which translates to “by-the-cut”. Due to popular demand, the pop-up remained open for over a year, functioning as a recipe laboratory, experimenting with traditional Roman favorites and various seasonal specials.
The new restaurants will celebrate the Roman origin of their unique style of pizza (“RO”) with a California-inspired ethos (“CA”), which blends creativity and commitment to premium products and ingredients sourced locally and internationally. The artisan dough, perfected down to a science after more than 70 years of research and development in Rome, and was discovered by the Rosenfield’s a decade ago. The dough is long cold fermented for 48 hours or more, creating an airy, puffy, soft rise in the dough, and when baked, achieves a notable crunch. Each pizza is baked in specialized Italian-made, humidity-controlled ovens, maintaining the freshness of seasonal toppings while ensuring a delightfully crisp crust.
“Both locations are focal points to their respective communities with a vibrant mix of retailers and impressive culinary offerings that ROCA is excited to be a part of,”Rosenfield said. “We are eager to introduce ROCA to LA’s Westside.”
Coming first in late-November to the Pacific Palisades, the Palisades Village location will feature outdoor dining and a delivery window adjacent to the patio. Second in line Marina del Rey, Waterside location is slated to open in early 2023 and will feature a menu including extensive pizza flavors, Roman specialty “supply”, salads, appetizers, and desserts. In both locations, display cabinets will exhibit full pan pizzas that customers can select by the slice by-the-cut, with half- and full-pan options as well, encouraging guests to enjoy a sampling of several different specialty pizzas.
The full menu and additional information can be viewed at www.rocapizza.com.
