Delores Tronco grew up in New Jersey eating a big Italian Sunday dinner every week with her family. Her grandparents had emigrated from Palermo and Naples to New York City, where they ran a produce cart and a bakery that also sold eels out front.
Inspired by her heritage, Tronco recently overhauled the menu at her Denver restaurant, The Greenwich, at 3258 Larimer St., to focus primarily on Italian dishes. “It’s not so much a 180-degree turn as it is a 90-degree shift,” she said.
“We might add our own tank of eels to the front,” she joked.
Tronco’s restaurant roots took hold in Denver when she co-founded Work & Class in 2016. After that, she moved to New York to open The Banty Rooster, a Southwestern spot. She returned to Denver during the pandemic, and opened The Greenwich in November 2021.
It started out as a chic, New York City-inspired spot with a new American vibe. When executive chef Justin Freeman left The Greenwich last summer to pursue his own pizzeria, chef-de-cuisine Luke Miller stepped up in his place, “ready for Greenwich 2.0,” Tronco said.
Tronco knew she wanted to keep the restaurant’s popular sourdough pizzas and New York-Basque cheesecake, but she let Miller take creative control of most of the menu changes, including the new calabrese and hot honey pizza. “It allowed Luke to turn a new page, establish himself as the executive chef … and carve out his own path,” she said.
There was one non-negotiable, though. “The only thing I asked was that we could have meatballs on the menu, and that they could be roughly inspired by the way my family made them,” Tronco said. And Miller delivered. The Jersey Ernie’s pork, beef and bacon meatballs come braised in a spicy arrabbiata sauce atop a brown-butter polenta (4 for $24 or 6 for $34). They cut easily with the side of a fork.
“The first time he made them, I was blown away by how quickly he got it, and I didn’t even hand him a recipe card or anything,” Tronco said.
The Greenwich has also slimmed down its entrees, taking off the short ribs and transforming the half-roasted chicken into piccata style. Since it’s located next door to Dio Mio, which primarily serves pasta, Tronco and Miller decided to serve only one pasta dish, Sardinian fregola with clams.
“It was important to me that we were good neighbors to them, so we were very intentional about not going pasta-forward on our menu as we shifted toward Italian and instead continued to embrace the sourdough pizzas that we’ve always had and then built out the rest in a more Italian direction,” Tronco said.
The beverage program has also been updated with Aperol and other spritzes and cocktails. On Margarita Mondays, The Greenwich is serving $12 Margherita pizzas and $8 “Italian” margaritas.
For those looking for a quick bite and a glass of wine or a drink, The Greenwich added a menu section dubbed Piccolini, meaning “little ones.” Small portion appetizers, like fried mozzarella and Cerignola olives with artichokes range from $8 to $12. Or you can ball out with a $28 colorful plate of wagyu carpaccio, fresh from Tronco’s cousin’s King Mountain cattle ranch in McCoy.
“People are feeling it right now,” Tronco said. “The world is a really tough and expensive place, and I think restaurants are meant to be restorative to people, and part of that is feeling like you can enjoy time out without spending hundreds of dollars. You can still go big, but we really wanted to carve out an experience where you can get in and out for $50.”
Originally Published: July 23, 2024 at 9:06 a.m.
