A SECOND-GENERATION CHEF DISHES UP SLOW-COOKED LEGACY FARE AT A PIONEERING ITALIAN RESTAURANT AND MARKET IN WALL

BY ERIK SCHONING PHOTOS BY ALEX BARRETO

There are many roads to becoming a chef. For some, it’s an unexpected career, something they fell in love with along the way. For others, like Chef Biagio “Benny” Schiano, the road to leading a kitchen feels predestined. As the son of an Italian immigrant and restaurateur, Schiano views cooking as something far more than a professional calling: it’s his birthright.

In 1979, Schiano’s father opened A&S Deli in Wall. An Italian immigrant who first settled in Brooklyn, he moved to the Garden State to be closer to the kind of seaside lifestyle he loved in his native country. In 2003, Schiano took over his father’s business and renamed it Mossuto’s, after his grandfather’s nickname. With one foot in the past and another in the future, Schiano was intent on honoring his father’s cherished recipes and quality cooking, while at the same time building upon what the business could be. He quickly moved to expand, taking the newly minted Mossuto’s from a small Italian deli to a full-service market, bakery, butchery, bar, and restaurant.

“It was hard at first,” Schiano said. “But we came out of it strong. The original store was open for 22 years, and today I’ve been there 23 years. So we made it, and now we’ve expanded the business to five or six times the size it was before.”

From day one, Schiano has prided himself on staying ahead of the curve. Today, hybrid market-cafe-restaurants are all the rage, but at the time it was an unconventional concept. (Schiano remembers coming across Eataly for the first time. He said to himself: “They stole my idea!”) At a time when authentic, Neapolitan-style pizza in Jersey was difficult to find, Schiano bought an imported pizza oven from a restaurant supply store on the Bowery and started sizzling wood-fired pizzas at Mossuto’s. He got a liquor license to make sure his guests could enjoy a Montepulciano or Manhattan with their meals. Even a movement as trendy and modern as “farm-to-table” has long been the philosophy in Schiano’s kitchen, even before it had a catchy name and Instagram following.

“I buy the best ingredients I can and try to not do too much to them,” said the chef. “Good olive oil is good olive oil. Good tomatoes are good tomatoes. T hat’s my philosophy on food: if you start with something good, it’s always going to be good. That’s been our business model since day one. I’m 50 years old and I don’t ever remember not doing it this way.”

For all the changes and growth the business has seen over the years, some things remain unchanged. Even today, Schiano stays true to his father’s recipes, the very ones he brought with him from Italy. Longtime favorites – the home made fresh mozzarella, the roasted peppers, the roasted tomatoes have been prepared in the same method for nearly half a century. (Schiano flies to Italy twice a year to make sure all his ingredients meet his standards.) But the secret ingredient, more often than not, is time: one of Schiano’s personal favorites, the pasta e fagioli, is slow-cooked with fresh vegetables until the beans burst open, making a creamy sauce. The traditional Bolognese cooks for four to five hours; the bone-in chicken scarpariello, served with vinegar peppers and potatoes, falls off the bone. Everything on the menu is prepared with old-school care and attention.

Kindled by the creativity of the craft, Schiano is always looking for ways to put his own touches on the menu while honoring his family’s recipes. For example, one of his father’s longtime favorites was the Genovese, a hearty ragu traditionally prepared by slow-cooking beef with onions. Schiano’s twist is subtle replacing the beef with pork maintaining the soul of the dish but tweaking it slightly to bring in the deep, rich flavors of a slow-simmered cut of pork.

“It’s just a modification of the food my dad ate in Italy when he was a child,” Schiano said. “All the dishes he made in the store were basically what he ate growing up. So the roots are there, and now I’m doing the same thing, cooking the food I grew up with. If I’m altering it slightly, changing the cut of a pasta or a protein, it’s because I have my own idea of what I want the dish to be. But I’m always honoring the original dish.”

Since taking the captain’s wheel in 2003, Schiano has grown Mossuto’s into a cornerstone of the Jersey Shore community. With his catering business, he’s taken part in the milestone moments of so many of his neighbors. (Schiano recently catered a 25th birthday party; 24 years ago, he catered the very same customer’s first birthday.

Whether people are dropping in for a fresh loaf of bread, picking up a few steaks for a neighborhood barbecue, or enjoying a Chianti over a plate of homemade rigatoni Bolognese, Schiano is proud to be a part of the extended family that Mossuto’s has created over generations. For all the growth and success he’s achieved in his business, these days, he’s focused on enjoying everything he and his father built.

“Every day, someone comes in who I’ve known since I was a child,” Schiano said. “I started doing this when I was eight or nine years old. After 40 years of work, I’ve realized I just need to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m not a multi-unit operator sort of guy. I just want to enjoy my family, my business, my customers, and my food.”

Mossuto’s Market & Cafe

2029 NJ-35, Spring Lake 732.449.8058 / mossutosmarketnj.com