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Venerable Italian eatery King Umberto, a fixture in Elmont since 1976, is moving on up with a new, upscale dining room, a reinvigorated menu and other changes to improve the freshness and quality of many of their signature dishes and specialties.
“Serata,” King Umberto’s elevated culinary concept, will start taking reservations in June, said Ciro Cesarano, the restaurant’s co-owner and general manager.
Renowned chef/consultant Larry Forgione is helping design the new menu for Serata.
Nicknamed the “Godfather of American cuisine,” Forgione is credited with starting the farm-to-table social movement, which prioritizes serving local food — ideally procured directly from the producer — at restaurants and school cafeterias.
Known best for his menu magic at An American Place in New York City, the Long Island native and Culinary Institute of America (CIA) graduate has collected numerous industry awards, including America’s Best Chef from the James Beard Foundation and Chef of the Year from the CIA.
Cesarano recalled that since originally expanding into both a restaurant and pizzeria in 1985, King Umberto — located at 1343 Hempstead Turnpike — has “remained untouched for 40 years until now,” with only minor renovations in the meantime, such as carpeting and wallpaper.
He added that with the success of the patio area opening during the pandemic (effectively doubling the restaurant’s seating) the management decided to make the dining room experience more upscale. The restaurant will also add a basement prep-room to help expand service of such in-house bakery as focaccias, Italian breads, cakes, and other desserts and cookies.
Work on the basement prep-room began last July.
The changes that are making way for Serata include shrinking the restaurant portion of the old dining room from 120 seats to about 70 seats, and then expanding the size of the kitchen.
“In the (Serata) dining room, there will be a slightly different menu, a bit more high-end, still Italian, but we want to re-brand King Umberto’s dining room into a new restaurant,” he said.
“We want the best of the best as far as linens, plates, glassware/silverware goes,” Cesarano said. “We want to do something special in that dining room — make it more of an experience, rather than just the standards that have been our mainstays for decades.”
Current signature dishes at King Umberto include their grandma’s pizza, a thin, crispy pizza with garlic marinara sauce and fresh oregano, as well as an array of favorites from chicken Marsala and veal Francese to eggplant Parmigiana, traditional pastas, salads and seafood options.
Cesarano said the expansion could be near completion by the end of the summer.
“The plan is to improve the pizza business,” he said, adding that the right equipment can make dough production much easier along with the right talent.
In addition, he said that most of the venue’s baked sweet goods will be exclusively served in-house.
One exception though might be the venue’s artisan donuts, known as bombolonis. Cesarano said that for the past four or five years, every Wednesday, King Umbertos’ has been making the filled, Italian-style doughnuts that have been “hugely successful.”
“We sell out of them on Wednesdays — we make 150 doughnuts, they’re artisanal style, kind of expensive, for pre-sale only,” he said. Due to the success of the doughnuts, Cesarano said the eatery will possibly expand service by offering other baked items on different days of the week.
Overall, Cesarano said he’s looking forward to the revamped and expanded restaurant.
“It’s going to be really exciting … I think people will like it,” he said.
Top image: Artist rendering of Serata at King Umberto (courtesy).
