Rafiq Salim

Coming Up

A kitchen point of view can be built from movement as much as from station work. In Rafiq Salim’s case, the frame includes college in Boston, years in New York City on and off since 2007, and a family background across a Dutch mother and an Indonesian/Yemeni father. The useful part for the craft is range: learning to hold more than one reference at once without turning identity into garnish. Formal training at Culinary Institute of America gave the baseline, but the working education came through jobs with different pressures and clocks. Salim built fluency through work as a restaurant worker at local Italian restaurant, a concessions worker at college football games, a finance professional at finance, and a brunch-shift cook at Public in New York City. Those rooms teach separate skills: crowd pace, repetition, restraint, workplace discipline, and the hard timing of brunch service. Technique tightened in kitchens where repetition matters. Salim cooked at Bouchon in Yountville, CA, then returned to New York City and moved from line cook to sous chef at Gramercy Tavern in New York City (2011–2017). That span is the kind of training ground where station discipline, consistency, and hospitality are measured every service, not described abstractly. The current work gathers that background into a neighborhood format. Rafiq is Head Chef and co-owner of Rolo's (since 2021), where the cooking has to carry training, speed, endurance, and generosity without excess handling.

Where They Are Now

Wood fire sets the operating terms at Rolo's. The restaurant is a wood-fired bar and grill known for inventive takes on classics, and Salim’s cooking uses the wood-fired oven as a practical filter for experience rather than as a stage effect. Heat, smoke, and char are applied where they help the ingredient and the plate read clearly. The menu is approachable, focused, beautifully executed, and built for the Ridgewood community. Its standard is plain and difficult: food that is hot, well-seasoned, and hopefully on time. In that kind of room, precision has to serve use. A dish earns its place by how it eats, not by how much explanation it requires. Calabrian chile polenta bread functions as an opening signal for the house, a Rolo's staple that hits almost every table at the start of the meal. The two-sheet lasagna verde is a fan favorite, and the two-sheet lasagna—made with spinach dough, béchamel, bolognese, and parmesan—is the dish most associated with Salim. Its craft is structural: pasta, sauce, fat, and seasoning held in proportion so the comfort stays legible. The same classic-minded grill logic carries through Wood-Fired Lamb Chops with Lumina lamb, green olive salsa verde, and lemon, and a double cheeseburger served with a whole pickled pepper. These are appetite-driven dishes, but the work is in control: fire used for direct flavor, acid used to cut richness, and familiar forms kept tight. Restaurant life on screen rarely gets the room pressure right, but Salim has named one reference point: "The Bear is the best depiction of a restaurant kitchen that I've seen so far." The comment points to the parts cooks recognize first: compression, speed, and the emotional load of service.

Signature

Signature dishes include Calabrian chile polenta bread and Two-Sheet Lasagna Verde.

In Their Words “The Bear is the best depiction of a restaurant kitchen that I've seen so far.”

Honors

Rafiq's honors include StarChefs New York Rising Stars Award Winner (2023).