Al Cervini said that diners at his restaurant, Rosalie’s Trattoria, regularly try to categorize his food.   “They ask if it’s Tuscan or Northern Italian,” he said. “To me, it’s just food.” In fact, the menu focuses on those dishes that Cervini enjoyed growing up in New York.

He opened the restaurant, named for his wife who is a local teacher, in 2018 at 5031 Market St. in Wilmington. Cervini landed in the Wilmington area as he was finishing his career in the Marine Corps, and it was a natural choice to start a restaurant.