Restaurant News: Rosario's Opens, Cottonwood Closes, Maria X 2 = 0?

• Another Italian restaurant comes to Boca Raton with the debut of Rosario's Ristorante in the tony Royal Palm Place shopping mall. Rosario Lanza, late of La Viola, is serving up a menu of mostly tried and true dishes from the top of the boot to his native Sicily, which...

By Bill Citara

August 18, 2009

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•   Another Italian restaurant comes to Boca Raton with the debut of Rosario's Ristorante in the tony Royal Palm Place shopping mall. Rosario Lanza, late of La Viola, is serving up a menu of mostly tried and true dishes from the top of the boot to his native Sicily, which means everything from escarole croquettes and spaghetti Bolognese to veal Milanese and Sicilian-style swordfish. He's also offering a nightly summer menu special of appetizer, salad or pasta, entrée, dessert and coffee for $22.95.

•   Add another victim to the PBC restaurant body count. Cottonwood Café, which opened a little over a year ago in Royal Palm Place, has been chopped. (Sorry, Ted Allen.) The yupscale Southwestern eatery rode a wave of less than enthusiastic reviews and diner ennui virtually since the day it debuted, and probably few will notice its absence.

•   Carlos Santana may be supernaturally Smooth on guitar, but he may be Wishing It Was still full steam ahead on Maria Maria La Cantina, the nouveau Mexican restaurant he and partner Roberto Santibanez plan to open in the spiffy new addition to Boca's Town Center Mall. Word is that construction on MariaX2, which was supposed to already be open by now, has stopped, though no one is yet saying the project is officially dead. Still, it may be awhile (if ever) that Carlos can say to his restaurant posse, Put Your Lights On.

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