Chef Steven Botta’s latest old-school steakhouse, The Chop Shop, celebrates Jersey’s bond with red-sauce Brooklyn
BY KT HARRISON · PHOTOS BY ALEX BARRETO
What does a longtime chef and multi-restaurant-owner cook at home? “I’m never home,” said Steven Botta. “I’m in the kitchen at one of my restaurants.”
Fair enough; he grew up cooking with his “incredible chef” mother in the Italian stronghold of Sheepshead Bay, absorbing the fine points of “red-sauce” Brooklyn’s cuisine. Nowadays, “Mama Botta’s Sunday Dinner” is a menu blockbuster. And although Botta’s latest eatery is an Old Bridge steakhouse, “one pasta snuck onto on the menu,” he admitted, “lobster mac & cheese. It’s a side, but everyone wants it.”
Botta and his business partner, Angelo Bongiovanni (“friends since Sheepshead Bay”), opened the steakhouse in July. Its cheeky name, The Chop Shop, is a nostalgic nod to the fell-off-a-truck auto-body shops “you used to see in southern Brooklyn,” said Botta, now 58. The Chop Shop is a place to see and to be seen, with chandeliers and vintage brick walls furnishing a timeless backdrop to a memorable meal. “We’re classic. We’re serious. We’re a traditional American steakhouse,” the chef asserted.
Yet The Chop Shop is serving up innovative steakhouse traditions of its own. For one, it’s warm and social; its hottest dinner reservations are for the 28 seats along the buzzy bar. A plethora of wines by the glass, not investment-priced vintages, lead off the wine list. This is a steakhouse with caviar service, showcasing sustainable Kaluga roe. Caesar salad is custom-composed tableside with two types of anchovy on offer. In lieu of so-what apple pie, Botta serves up seasonal desserts plus bourbon-caramel éclairs, an epic cheesecake, and a monstrous sundae for four.
The Chop Shop’s joie de vivre coexists with a reverence for its numerous prime-cut steaks and chops, sourced mainly from Pat LaFrieda. Dry-aged cuts concentrate and tenderize in the on-premises meat locker for an uncommon 35 days or more. The kitchen’s wood-burning stove, a perfectionistic workhorse spanning 96 inches, turns out succulent steaks to order. They’re distinguished by a delectable, nearly crackly char and a wisp of smoke bestowed by local oak and cherry wood. Should your carnivorous fantasy be a Porterhouse, know that The Chop Shop does ’em all, including a long-boned Tomahawk cut.
As executive chef of all his restaurants, Botta drops into all his kitchens regularly, “supervising, tasting, and sometimes demonstrating a new menu item for the crew.” Being in the kitchen is the through-line of Botta’s story. During and after studying economics and finance at Brooklyn College, he tended bar in NYC restaurants and clubs, and he cooked for his housemates in Mantoloking summer shares. “I loved the idea of starting a restaurant, but I didn’t have any experience,” he said. Inspiration arrived via a friendship with the owners of an Italian restaurant in Bay Ridge. “Areo was the hottest place in town,” said Botta. “I started to see what hospitality success looked like.” Another inspiration was Michael’s of Brooklyn, a 60-plus-year institution run by Bongiovanni’s brothers-in-law, Freddie and Johnny Cacace.
The dream endured. After successful stints on Wall Street and in the mortgage and insurance businesses, his inner restaurateur broke free in 2011. Botta moved to Monmouth County, “as Italian as Brooklyn ever was,” he said. He and a partner bought Brando’s in Asbury Park, reinventing it as Brando’s Citi Cucina, “Jersey’s first Italian steakhouse.” Brando’s, still thriving, foretold Botta’s signature style: professional servers, stylish surroundings, and an ingredient-first menu. Next, he and Bongiovanni, a restaurant industry veteran, debuted Marlboro’s Osteria Cucina Rustica (“Jersey’s second Italian steakhouse,” joked Botta). Feast Italian Kitchen opened in 2019 in Old Bridge, dishing up old-school pizza, pastas and entrées aplenty, followed by seafood-centric Beach Tavern and The Water Club event space, both alongside the Shrewsbury River in Monmouth Beach.
The Chop Shop promises to cement Old Bridge as a dining mecca. Don’t believe us? Have a seat at the bar. Order Botta’s sublime starter, Lobster “Escargot,” six spheres of lush lobster in place of rubbery snails, aswim in garlic-shallot butter within a sculpted escargot plate. You’re thinking, “finally, someone got escargot right.” Now, picture your splendid steak dinner to come. Feeling good?
Agreed, Italian restaurants’ “you’ll feel like famiglia” bit is a cliché. But we know there’s something real inside every cliché. And the truth is, you feel part of something really nice at The Chop Shop.
The Chop Shop — 3889 Route 9 / Old Bridge, NJ 08857 / 848-828-9326 / chopshopnj.com