Rocco's mature cooking style has the press taking notice. Esquire's John Mariani put Rocco on his list of "Chefs to Keep Your Eye On," while Gourmet magazine upped the ante by listing Fahrenheit in its Guide to America's Best Restaurants (October 2002). "Chef Rocco Whalen knows how to coax big, vital flavors from fresh materials," it wrote.

In its November 2004 issues, Restaurant Hospitality, a national trade magazine, named Rocco a "Rising Star." He and several other hotshot chefs were honored as such at an awards ceremony in Chicago.

The local press has been equally impressed with Rocco, including the following reviews:

"A trip to Fahrenheit, chef Rocco Whalen's restaurant in the Tremont area, could leave diners of a certain age humming a popular tune from the '50s: Little Things Mean a Lot. This is a place where the tiniest details..."
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"One lesson Whalen learned early from Wolfgang Puck, when he worked for 'Wolf,' (initially as a sous chef at Obachine in Phoenix in '97), was the importance of using the finest, freshest ingredients..."
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"Just when diners were fretting that Cleveland's restaurant renaissance was running out of steam, along came Fahrenheit, a charming little bistro in Tremont, with outstanding food, engaging atmosphere, and enthusiastic service..."
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"Sometimes you can just walk into a new restaurant, drink in the surroundings, sit down, read the menu and wine list and say to yourself "this place is going to be a big hit..."
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