THIS JERSEY CHEF BRINGS HIS CREATIVE, UNBOUNDED APPROACH TO A NEWLY REVAMPED SEA BRIGHT RESTAURANT

BY ERIK SCHONING PHOTOS BY ALEX BARRETO

As far back as he can remember, Alex Riley wanted to be a chef. Today, helming the ship at Brothers Daley in Sea Bright, Riley is pulling from a career’s worth of influence, technique, and experience to craft one of Monmouth County’s most exciting and eclectic menus.

Riley recalls his early days in the food industry with fondness. At fifteen, he was working at a seafood market in Little Silver, driving the box truck out to Fulton Fish Market, picking up the day’s catch, assisting in breaking down and cleaning, and getting paid in cash at the end of the day: “It was like Goodfellas mixed with Kitchen Confidential,” he quipped.

While enrolled in the culinary program at Johnson & Wales in Providence, Riley landed a role at Farmstead, a farm-to-table hotspot, under the four-time James Beard Award finalist Matt Jennings. Here, Riley sharpened his craft, picking up the tools and techniques to become the creative, boundary-pushing chef he is today

“Matt was a great mentor,” Riley said. “He loved working with the younger chefs, teaching us and fostering the next generation of cooks. And that was where I thought, ‘OK, these are the kinds of places where I need to be.’”

Last year, a friend contacted Riley about rebranding a restaurant in the space formerly occupied by Rory’s Pub, a Sea Bright dive. In the intervening years, Riley had become something of a golden thumb in the restaurant-opening business, helping launch Sickles Market in Red Bank with Jersey legend Chris Mumford, the breakfast-and-coffee concept Almost Home in multiple locations, and a catering company, Black Rose Provisions, launched with his wife, Zia Riley. In January of this year, Riley walked in the doors of Brothers Daley and, along with his kitchen team, has been turning heads ever since.

Riley likes to call his menu “approachable but elevated,” a melange of homestyle staples and familiar dishes with unexpected twists. What unites his menu is not so much a single cuisine or style of cooking, but a philosophy: everything that makes it onto the menu has to be fresh and interesting. An extensive raw bar rubs elbows with Southern pimento cheese; a few lines down you’ll find a German pork schnitzel next to house-made corn and mascarpone agnolotti with tomato conserva, corn broth, and cream.

“There’s no box for us to stay in,” Riley said. “We can and will do whatever we want to do. We have caviar on the menu and we have smashburgers. There’s something for everybody, and we like it that way.”

A standout dish, developed by chef-de-cuisine John Niederer, is the shrimp toast, a riff on classic Chinese takeout. Fresh shrimp from Local 130 is blended into a mousse with scallions, ginger, and egg white, then smeared over white bread and pan-seared to order. The result is a beautiful study in texture and flavor: the shrimp mousse puffs up, creating an airy texture offset by the crunchy bread, and the dish is finished with a coconut chili lime sauce for a pop of bright freshness.

Another breakout star is the scarpariello collard greens, developed by Riley’s other CDC, Marshall Williams. A variation on classic American southern collard greens, the dish subs in an Italian-American scarpariello sauce, which hits the same acidic, sweet, and rich notes as the vinegar base of more traditional preparations. Ham hocks are subbed out for a beef demi. The idea here runs through the entire menu at Brothers Daley: familiar yet unexpected. That goes for just about everything: the Waldorf salad, finished with homemade “Cheez-It” saltines brushed with butter and parm; deviled eggs topped with either jumbo lump crab and crème fraîche dressing or crispy bacon and fresh serrano; and a roast chicken that is Riley’s personal ode to Boston Market, served with malt vinegar BBQ sauce and cheddar grits.

“There’s no box for us to stay in. There’s something for everybody, and we like it that way.”

Notice that both the collard greens and the shrimp toast are the brainchildren of Riley’s CDCs; that’s not by accident. Riley works hard to invest in his team, and empowers his chefs to take responsibility for their menus. For example, the woodfired specials, pizzas, and crudos at Brothers Daley are the work of Gabe Scalzo, one of Riley’s youngest chefs. It’s a mentality that Riley picked up from Chris Mumford, one of his mentors: the idea that, when manag – ing a kitchen, people should be allowed to explore their interests and do what they’re good at. A simple concept, yes, but it’s surprisingly rare in the regimented world of kitchens, where ego is often the order of the day.

“I don’t want to stifle anyone’s creativity,” Riley said. “I just try to throw gas on that fire and encourage them to keep going. Too many people try to take on the job them – selves and do every facet of running a kitchen. For me, it doesn’t work that way. That’s how restaurants get boring menus and chefs get burnout. You have to lead from behind. You have to bring everyone up with you.”

Riley has come a long way from a box truck in Little Silver. He credits his wife, Zia, and stepdaughter, Kai, as the drivers in everything he does, sources of constant inspiration and motivation. He has brought that same intensity of focus to his time at Brothers Daley. With another shoreside summer at Sea Bright in full swing, Riley and his team are on a mission to capture everyone’s attention, one unexpected bite at a time.

Brothers Daley

1124 Ocean Avenue, Sea Bright 732.230.6056 / brothersdaley.com