Bites Nearby: Umberto’s Pizzeria and Restaurant

You could stand on a corner and look around until a restaurant sign draws you in. But we've got a better idea. Each week, New Hyde Park Patch picks a great restaurant either in town or nearby that is worth checking out. Here's this week's choice:

When deciding upon the right location to begin his restaurant career, Umberto Corteo found just was he was looking for in the up-and-coming, family-oriented .

Since 1965, Umberto’s Pizzeria and Restaurant has called its original Jericho Turnpike site home. A landmark institution, Umberto’s is known for having one of the best slices of pizza around as well as quality Italian food.

So what is the recipe for making some of the highest acclaimed pizza on Long Island? Just as in preparing their famous Sicilian pie, the answer is a short list of simple ingredients and a well-honed process: fresh products, a passion for cooking, constant refinement, and in Umberto Corteo’s case, a desire for advancement.

He was a young dishwasher at a Brooklyn pizzeria when Corteo found his calling. Eager to learn, he would occasionally help with making pizzas. One weekend, a woman came into the pizzeria and requested that he make her a pie; from then on, it was no more dish washing for him.

“It proves to you that my father’s motto was to always hustle,” said Umberto’s oldest daughter and restaurant Chief Financial Officer Ida Corteo.

Today, Umberto’s name is widely recognized with several other locations on Long Island.

In developing the menu for his restaurant, Umberto draws from his humble beginnings growing up on a farm in Monte de Procida, Naples, where he learned the mechanics of organic living.

Umberto has “used nothing but fresh ingredients since day one,” Ida Corteo said. Everything is homemade and all products from the tomatoes to the olive oil are constantly taste tested for the best quality.

Must-try pizzas include the Sicilian, brick oven pie, and the simple but much requested grandma pie, learned from Umberto’s own mother.

The food is “basically southern Neapolitan cuisine with a new mix thrown in here and there,” explains Ida Corteo, who adds that the family makes sure to keep the menu up-to-date with culinary trends.

Start with the cold antipasto platter for the freshest assortment of cheeses, olives, sopressata and prosciutto. Another appetizer choice to keep in mind is the tender fried calamari.

Along with a wide assortment of pasta, chicken and baked al forno dishes like manicotti and stuffed shells, Umberto’s General Manager for over 20 years, Guiseppe Barba, recommends the stuffed veal chop with prosciutto and fontina cheese and the lobster rigatoni made up of a whole lobster served over pasta with calamari, shrimp and clams in a light tomato basil sauce.

“We are a big family-run operation,” Ida Corteo said of the restaurant which has been family-owned and operated from the start, “It is definitely a family experience from head to toe.”

Between Umberto’s son, Gaetano, and nephew, Vincenzo, managing the place, customers are welcomed as kin. Whether at the pizzeria or in the elegant old world setting of the restaurant next door, you will feel like a guest in the Corteo home, dining at their family table.

Banquet facility and catering are available.

Umberto’s Pizzeria and Restaurant, 633 Jericho Turnpike, New Hyde Park, (516) 437-7698. Monday- Thursday, 11:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.; Friday-Sunday, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 a.m. http://www.originalumbertos.com/home.php.