THE DELUCA’S GROUP OF RESTAURANTS EXPANDS WITH A CASUAL, FAMILY-FRIENDLY CONCEPT

BY ERIK SCHONING PHOTOS BY ALEX BARETTO

DeLuca’s Italian Restaurant is a Staten Island staple, the borough’s go-to spot for upscale Italian dining. With his latest concept, Don Roberto’s, Rob DeLuca looks to deliver something even more elusive: a casual, family-friendly Italian restaurant that doesn’t skimp on deluxe, high-quality food.

Don Roberto’s replaces DeLuca’s Trattoria in West Brighton; DeLuca closed the former restaurant on the first day of this year, and debuted Don Roberto’s to the public on February 1. Closing a restaurant is never easy, but the overwhelming success of DeLuca’s Italian Restaurant and its recent expansions empowered DeLuca to redesign the Trattoria as a completely new concept.

“I was supposed to sign a lease for a third location, and Don Roberto’s was supposed to go into this third location,” DeLuca said. “But after the deal fell through, I couldn’t get it out of my head. About a week and a half later, I’m sitting in DeLuca’s Trattoria, having lunch, and I thought, ‘I really want to do this casual concept, but now what am I going to do?’ Then I realized, wait a minute, I can do it here. I have everything I need right here.”

The idea of Don Roberto’s has been incubating for a while; DeLuca first designed the project about eight years ago. Having already established himself in the fine dining space, he wanted a different type of eatery: a neighborhood hangout with inexpensive, quality food. For DeLuca, Don Roberto’s is very much a return to his roots; despite his years of fine dining experience, DeLuca got his start at 16 in casual neighborhood restaurants and pizzerias.

Walking into Don Roberto’s, one can immediately feel that family restaurant DNA, from the neon marquee to the white-and-red menu. But you can also feel DeLuca’s signature understated elegance the marble bartop, for example. The real tightrope act of this restaurant is that it manages to meld a casual family-friendly atmosphere with high-end food and a refined sensibility.

“The customers have absolutely fallen head-over-heels in love with it because it’s finally a place that has that casual atmosphere,” DeLuca said. “Over the last ten years, dining has shifted. There’s a big shift away from fine dining. This is finally a place that’s casual with a lower price point, but now with great food. ”

Nowhere is this fun-versus-formal dynamic more on display than on the menu. To build out the menu at Don Roberto’s, DeLuca took a lot of his recipes from DeLuca’s. The idea was to build a stream lined menu that would keep costs and prices down without skimping on quality. Since opening in February, Don Roberto’s calling card has quickly become the Big Chicken Parm, a giant cutlet that DeLuca affectionately describes as “the size of your head.” Chicken parm is really the perfect encapsulation of what DeLuca is after with this restaurant; there’s nothing flashy about it, but to be done right, you have to nail every component of the dish: the sauce, the chicken, the cheese. It may not be revolutionary, but that’s not really the goal here. The goal is comfort food done really well.

Other menu standouts include a pistachio-encrusted lamb chop and a linguine frutti di mare, a combination of mussels, clams, shrimp, and calamari; true to the menu’s informal ethos, the linguine dish is fully customizable, served in a red or white sauce, and done sweet or spicy. As a tribute to the pizzerias of his youth, Don Roberto’s features a full pizza menu of 12 and 16-inch New York style pies.

“Nothing screams Italian family style restaurant more than pizza,” DeLuca said. “It’s something that we do really well. It takes me back to my roots, how I first started in this industry. I love a classic margherita pie, but I also love to get creative and develop all-new pizzas, interesting styles and toppings, things that will entice your palate, not necessarily just your regular cheese pie.”

The number one pizza on offer is the Sweet and Spicy, a spicy soppressata and honey pie, but DeLuca’s favorite is the Long Term Parking (named after an episode of Sopranos), a fascinating blend of pistachio, pesto, mortadella, and stracciatella cheese. (“I laugh and I say, you have all that mortadella on the pie and it’s gonna be long term parking for you,” DeLuca said.)

Ultimately, though, the dream of a family-friendly version of DeLuca’s Italian Restaurant is deeply personal. DeLuca and his wife Gina Marie’s son, Rocky, is eight months old. DeLuca used to bring Rocky to DeLuca’s in the afternoon to hang out in the banquet room before service; now, he can bring Rocky into Don Roberto’s even in the middle of dinner service.

“On opening night at Don Roberto’s, my wife and mother showed up with my son in a stroller,” DeLuca said. “That’s what Don Roberto’s is. It’s very hard to bring a kid with you into a high-end environment. You don’t want to bring them to a place like DeLuca’s. So Rocky was a big part of the inspiration; when you have a kid, you want to be around that baby as much as possible.”

Having a child has a way of bringing you back to your roots. Thankfully, chicken parm has a way of doing that, too.

Don Roberto’s Classic Italian

616 Forest Avenue

718.442.7204 / donrobertonyc.com