A RED BANK OUTPOST OF A BENSONHURST STAPLE CHURNS OUT CLASSIC, QUALITY SICILIAN FARE

BY ERIK SCHONING PHOTOS BY ALEX BARRETO

The legend of Il Colosseo goes back to 1991, when Lorenzo Mannino opened the original location in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. A tribute to all things Sicilian, Il Colosseo quickly became a staple of the neighborhood. In 2021, Mannino’s son, Giulio, brought the Il Colosseo experience to Red Bank. With head chef Oscar Palaguachi at the helm, the restaurant continues to set the standard for homemade, quality Italian cooking.

Like most successful ventures, Il Colosseo is the product of an auspicious partnership: Mannino draws on his Sicilian heritage and Palaguachi leverages decades of experience in the restaurant industry.

“I began cooking in 1989,” Palaguachi said. “I started at Il Mulino, and since then I’ve been the head chef at many restaurants. I bring all that experience here. I put in everything I know.”

When it came time to open Il Colosseo in Red Bank, a manager who had worked with Palaguachi in the past brought him on to helm the new restaurant. For the chef, whose wide-ranging career spanned New American and even Japanese restaurants, it was a return to the cuisine he knew best, a cuisine he had mastered.

That sense of mastery is all over the menu at Il Colosseo. A meal might begin with grilled octopus or a mozzarella di bufala caprese, made with buffalo milk mozzarella flown in from Campania. Chef Palaguachi also does a calamari agrodolce, a popular special that draws on his experience in Asian cookery, tweaking the sweet-and sour Italian condiment ever so subtly.

All the pasta at Il Colosseo is home made, from the papardelle, served with a braised short rib ragu and wild mushroom truffle sauce, to the Gnocchi Italiano, a pillowy gnocchi tossed with pesto then served over tomato sauce and finished with fresh burrata.

But at Il Colosseo, the menu is only half the story. Chef Palaguachi is always putting out new specials, particularly seafood. An ever-rotating offering of specials gives the chef an opportunity to experiment, to try out new dishes in search of the next crowd favorite. At many restaurants, specials are an afterthought; at Il Colosseo, they are as advertised: special.

“We change the specials daily,” owner Giulio Mannino said. “Every day, every two days, the offerings change. We like to focus on fresh ingredients, and we get inspiration from different places: dining at other restaurants, or dishes we see online or in books and magazines. We find something we like and then we play around with it to create our own special version.”

Chef Palaguachi’s menu is rounded out by wood-fired pizza, a 100% sourdough made with a mother yeast cultured at the restaurant for almost three years now. Few dishes are as dependent on high-caliber ingredients as pizza: from the dough to the toppings, one bite immediately reveals quality. At Il Colosseo, Chef Palaguachi uses unbleached, unbromated flour in the dough, and the pizzas are topped with fresh mozzarella from Lioni in Brooklyn.

But the real crown jewel among so many treasures is the seafood. Chef Palaguachi has a soft spot for seafood; it’s his favorite genre to cook. Anyone who’s ever tried to grill a fish knows it’s not easy, and one of Chef Palaguachi’s great strengths is his ability to deliver consistent, perfectly prepared seafood.

“We like to focus on fish: halibut, silver sole, Chilean sea bass,” Mannino said. “We’re islanders, so we can never get enough fish.”

Il Colosseo’s success in the last four years is proof that, clearly, the recipe is working. Despite being relatively new to Red Bank, the restaurant feels timeless. The walls are decorated with antiques: carriage wheels and horse hardware give the interior a rustic feel and connect guests to the long, rich history of Italian culinary traditions.

“The connection with the community has been beautiful,” Mannino said. “It feels like old Brooklyn. We have a lot of regular customers, a lot of relationships that we’ve built here in the past four years.”

Chef Palaguachi has put in the time and effort to build relationships with his staff, too. As head chef, he has given the restaurant a culinary identity, a vision that extends to his prep and line cooks.

“He’s a modest guy,” Mannino said. “He’s a very hard worker. He’s our head chef, but he’s never out from behind the line. He’s always here with the boys, cooking and preparing all day long. He’s a great teacher.”

The best chefs can afford to be modest; after all, the food speaks for itself.

Colosseo

500 NJ-35, Red Bank 732.383.5373 / ilcolosseoristorante.com