Arrosto Italian Rotisserie in Farmingdale reopens after 10-month coronavirus hiatus

Ken Arnone spends a fair amount of time at the front window of Arrosto Italian Rotisserie looking out at the traffic on Route 110. When he shut down his Farmingdale restaurant in mid-March — less than three months after it opened — the traffic had virtually dematerialized. "Used to be, from 2:30 to 7 p.m. you couldn’t even see through the mass of cars stopped at the light at 110 and Smith Street," he recalled. "There were cars lining up just to get to a pump at the Speedway in front of us."

It had been the traffic that induced the veteran chef to open his fast-casual Italian roast shop here in 2019. According to his research, there are roughly 3,000 businesses within three miles of "his" intersection, about 2,500 residences and a college (Farmingdale State College) right across the street, not to mention easy access to the Long Island Expressway. "Route 110 is the busiest north-south route on Long Island," he said. "It’s where we wanted to be."

That kind of attention to detail comes naturally to Arnone. After a career as a hotel chef and instructor at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, he started a consulting business, traveling around the country working with independent restaurants, chains and franchises doing training, menu and recipe development. When he decided that he no longer wanted to travel three weeks out of every month, it didn’t take him long to come up with a concept for his own business.

Despite decades of fine dining experience, he confessed that "the older I have gotten, the less I love the 2½-hour white-tablecloth dinner. I’ve found much more to love in comfort food, and I think a lot of people feel that way." Arnone noted that working families "often eat out or take out two to three times a week" and are looking for fast-casual options that offer good food and value and speed.

Chipotle Mexican Grill, he said, is the "ideal model for fast casual." But Arnone is an Italian-American who grew up on Staten Island and has traveled extensively throughout Italy and so for Arrosto (Italian for "roast"), he designed a tight menu of Italian-accented items that could be either be cooked quickly to order or would hold well (and safely) throughout service.

The three protein stars are 5-spice chicken, porchetta-seasoned pork roast and grilled lemon-garlic shrimp. The whole birds are first brined for a day and then rubbed with a spice mixture before being loaded into a top-of-the-line Rotisol rotisserie. His pork butts are seasoned traditionally with rosemary, sage, garlic, fennel and crushed red pepper. Then they are slow-roasted overnight and pulled before service. Fat shrimp, marinated in lemon and garlic, are skewered and grilled to order. Meals ($10.49) come with two sides: mashed potatoes, escarole and beans, honey-glazed carrots, roasted broccoli and cauliflower, red slaw, risotto salad, tomato-cucumber salad or roasted peppers and onions. Larger-format family meals are also available.

The hot pork and cold chicken (plus a vegan chickpea burger) also figure in ciabatta panini. The Caesar and Mediterranean salads can both be topped with the protein of your choice. Arnone’s "chef’s specialties" include housemade potato chips with sage and rosemary and something he calls "love jus," the combined drippings from the roasted chicken and pork, which is meant to be used as a dip but you might want to chug it.

After New Year’s, Arnone began watching the traffic again and, sure enough, there were more cars on 110. "Some of the offices around here have reopened, people seemed more comfortable going out and the vaccine has helped too." On Jan. 25 he reopened Arrosto from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays.

Arrosto Italian Rotisserie is at 2263 Broadhollow Rd., Farmingdale, 631-390-8620, arrostoitalian.com.