Lunch, Anyone? Rifrullo Café

Just a five-minute walk from the Brookline Hills T-stop, Rifrullo Café is a cozy rendezvous point for visitors, offering a mix of classic dishes and healthy low-calorie options. Photos by Smaranda Tolosano (CAS’17)

Locally sourced ingredients and homemade bread and baked goods make Rifrullo Café in Brookline Village a standout for a light, healthy, and reasonably priced lunch. Open since September 2013, the restaurant has become a popular destination for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The café’s name (pronounced Ree-froo-lo) is Florentine slang for a social hub or center of mutual attraction. Brookline resident Colleen Marnell-Suhanosky, restaurant owner and chef, once lived in Florence. She began her culinary career in Boston and had restaurants in New York City and Nantucket before opening Rifrullo.

The café’s mission is written on the white brick walls and on its website: “We dreamed that Rifrullo would become a place for great food, friends, and community; and we continue to build on that vision every day.”

It more than delivers on its promise, with its cozy and casual home-style community atmosphere just beyond the bustle of Boston. Diners place orders for takeout or for dining in at the counter, and seating is limited (more about that below). Making good on its goal of making patrons feel at home, the café has weekly specials and community dinners one Saturday a month.

The breakfast menu has many appetizing choices, like the Cypress breakfast sandwich ($8), an organic egg served on brioche with bacon, avocado, cheddar, and kale pesto, and morning lox ($9), smoked salmon on house-made nutbread topped with goat cheese, fresh greens, radish, red onion, capers, lemon, and dill. There is also a yogurt bowl ($5.50) and the city sunrise smoothie ($7.50), a blend of fresh berries, beets, kale, and ginger for those who keep an eye on their carbs.

At dinner, patrons can choose from an array of entrees, like BBQ pork ribs ($12), spatchcock chicken ($10 half/$20 full), and eggplant tagine ($12). Side options include roasted potatoes ($7), beet salad ($6), and paleo mash ($8), an alternative to mashed potatoes made of parsnip, carrots, and cauliflower.

When we stopped by on a recent afternoon the café was relatively empty, but by the time we left nearly every seat was filled. Seating is limited. A large wooden table fills the middle of the room, while an oversized round hot pink couch is nestled in the corner next to the counter. There are two small tables next to the storefront windows and a bar seating area along the wall. The limited space makes it somewhat difficult to navigate—one customer knocked over a chair getting to her table. But the friendly atmosphere makes the small space tolerable. During our visit, old friends were catching up at one table, in between mothers with young children grabbing lunch.

We found the service quick and friendly. The counter staff offered ordering suggestions and patiently answered our questions about various dishes, and we received our food relatively quickly. That said, there was no line when we ordered, and service may be slower as the café gets busier.

After scoping out the menu and taking the suggestions into account, we settled on the quinoa taco salad ($9.50), the bacon, lettuce, and avocado (BLA) sandwich ($8.50), and the grilled cheese ($5.50). The pulled pork ($8.50) and the Taleggio ($8) sandwiches were also contenders.

The quinoa taco salad was a mix of crunchy greens, chickpeas, cheese, avocado, carrots, and quinoa with a cumin jalapeño vinaigrette dressing. The salad was good, but we were puzzled that it had no taco meat, as its name suggests. The dish could have had a bit more flavor, and the dressing could have benefited from more jalapeño, but overall it was a good light option for health-conscious diners.

Nearly every review we’d read praised Rifrullo’s delicious house-made bread, and both sandwiches lived up to expectations. The BLA was served on warm, flaky, soft bread with crisp lettuce, caramelized bacon, avocado slices, and mayonnaise. It could have used more of the latter, as it was slightly dry.

We wanted to try Rifrullo Café’s version of a classic grilled cheese sandwich. Diners have the option of adding bacon, but we passed. However, we did insert some of the caramelized bacon from our BLA into the grilled cheese, a delicious decision. Again, the bread did not disappoint: it was soft and warm on the inside with a crunchy crust. The pan-roasted sandwich was definitely enhanced by the bacon.

We left the café feeling comfortably full while managing to stay within our budget.

Rifrullo Café is at 147 Cypress St., just off Route 9, in Brookline Village; hours: Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; phone: 617-505-6727. The café serves breakfast from opening to 11 a.m., lunch from 11 a.m. to close, and dinner from 5 p.m. to close, and it accepts all major credit cards. Take an MBTA Green Line D trolley to Brookline Hills and walk  five minutes.

This is part of a weekly series featuring Boston lunch spots of interest to the BU community. If you have any suggestions for places we should feature, leave them in the Comment section below. Check out our list of lunchtime tips on Foursquare. 

Jennifer Bates can be reached at jennb7@bu.edu.

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