Executive chef Joseph Raiola is heating up Kitchen 21

Classic Coney Island Eatery Has World Class Chef

December 28, 2017 By John Alexander Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Executive chef Joseph Raiola at the cutting at Kitchen 21. Brooklyn Eagle photos by Arthur De Gaeta

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The Coney Island boardwalk has a new restaurant that is earning rave reviews from all across the borough and beyond. Kitchen 21, housed in the iconic landmarked building that once was home to Childs, has become the new hot spot along the Coney Island waterfront, located next to the state-of-the-art Ford Amphitheater.

And much of that is due to Legends Executive chef Joseph Raiola, who is responsible for the impeccable culinary cuisine at all five Legends venues: Parachute Bar, Coney Island Café, Community Clam Bar, Boardwalk & Vine rooftop bar and Test Kitchen. Legends Hospitality provides the food at Yankee Stadium, and Craveable Hospitality Group oversees the restaurants, including the David Burke Kitchen in Manhattan.

Kitchen 21 occupies 150,000 square feet of Coney Island beachfront property along the boardwalk. From the majestic bar’s windows, one can enjoy the spectacular view of the iconic Parachute Jump while sipping on one of the refreshing signature cocktails served.

Raiola brings many years of culinary experience to the job, having worked at some of the finest restaurants in the world including Tavern on the Green, The Plaza, the Tribeca Grill, Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers, the Lighthouse, the original Palm restaurant in Manhattan, the Palm Too, the legendary Lundy’s restaurant in Sheepshead Bay and most recently Morton’s Steakhouse in Downtown Brooklyn.

He’s also honed his craft alongside some of the most illustrious chefs in the world including the late Patrick Clark, a James Beard award-winning celebrity chef, who helped give him his start in the restaurant business.

The Staten Island-born and raised Raiola spent his early years, since he was 13, working in restaurants in that borough before moving to Brooklyn, where he has worked for 20 years. Raiola describes himself as “45 years old going on 150,” and says he loves everything about the restaurant business.

Raiola has competed on the television cooking programs “Top Chef,” and “Chopped,” which he ultimately won in 2010. He’s appeared on local TV shows and hosted two local cable cooking programs in Long Island. He was profiled in the Daily News and wrote his own biweekly food column for the Brooklyn Paper.

Raiola has been at Kitchen 21 since last March, before the restaurant opened in May. “This is something kind of different for Legends because they are not really a restaurant business, they’re more of a concessions group,” explained Raiola. “So it’s a big deal that they chose to open up this amazing space. They came to me and told me I could pick the menu and run the place any way I wanted. I loved that idea. It gives me a lot of freedom.”

The Coney Island Boardwalk is the perfect setting for this unique venue. “Coney Island is not what it used to be,” explained Raiola. “Today it’s an up-and-coming area like Park Slope was years ago and Sunset Park, which is now called South Slope; Red Hook and DUMBO. They’re getting ready to put some new hotels up so that people will come here and make a weekend out of it, like they did at the turn of the century.”

Kitchen 21 is involved in many of Coney Island’s landmark events such as the Polar Bear Plunge, the Mermaid Parade and the Brooklyn Half Marathon. “We are definitely starting to get involved in the community,” said Raiola. “We’ve been doing some work with the Coney Island Museum as well. We just did a benefit for their 100th anniversary. We sponsored the food. We’re looking to form more relationships with different organizations in the borough.”

Upcoming events planned for Kitchen 21 include the popular Coney Island New Year’s Eve fireworks show. “We’ll have a champagne toast with the fireworks on the roof. It’s the perfect view for the display,” said Raiola.

He is also pleased with the current menu. “You can get your burger, your chicken sandwich, your wings, things like that. But every week we’re changing our specials menu and we’re calling it our Test Kitchen. People are really starting to catch on to our Test Kitchen concept. For example, last week there was some great Mahi coming in from down south. This week it looks like Ahi tuna is running great in Hawaii, so we’ll probably grab some of that.”

He refers to the specials as “fun food done serious.” He cites as an example a hot dog-hamburger combination on a bun that customers love. “Three weeks ago we introduced this burger that we called the ‘Rabbit Island burger,’ since Rabbit Island was the old name of Coney Island. Basically we had a Legends blend burger, which is short rib chuck and brisket, and then we sliced a hot dog down really thin, crisped it up super crispy with lettuce and cheese sauce and put the fried hot dog on there with horseradish on a brioche bun, along with our staple sour cream and onion seasoned French fries.”

So if anyone needed any added incentive to check out Kitchen 21, its new Rabbit Island burger should be enough to get people to discover the completely unique menu and dining experience that Raiola and his staff have created at their restaurant along the boardwalk, down by the sea in Coney Island.