The Ten-Thousand-Dollar Bet

In 1974, a Sicilian farmer’s son walked into a German delicatessen on Hampton Road in Southampton Village.

Celestino Gambino had been in America for two years. At the time, he was working at his brother Peter’s restaurant in Westhampton Beach. With seven children to feed, he had almost no money saved. Moreover, he had no formal business experience and spoke heavily accented English.

He bought the deli for ten thousand dollars.

This is not a story about a man who calculated his risks carefully. Instead, it’s a story about a man who saw something others missed. Southampton felt different to him—more like home. Although he couldn’t explain why, he just knew.

Fifty-one years later, his children and grandchildren still run the restaurant he built. The marinara sauce still tastes like it did on opening day. Meanwhile, the portions still arrive on plates meant for families, not Instagram photographers. And everything still costs less than it should.

Everything Is About the Cheese

Celestino named his restaurant La Parmigiana for a simple reason.

He believed that cheese made everything work. The sauce needed it, and the crust demanded it. Without it, the eggplant simply disappeared. When the cheese was right, the food was right. Conversely, when the cheese was wrong, nothing else mattered.

This philosophy became the restaurant’s operating principle. Fresh mozzarella, made in-house. Parmigiano-Reggiano, imported and ungrateful for substitution. Additionally, ricotta that actually tasted like ricotta. For the salads, Gorgonzola. For the mesclun, goat cheese.

The name also served as a promise. La Parmigiana meant the food would arrive the way it came from Sicily. No fusion. No interpretation. No chef trying to express himself. Just the dish, as Celestino’s mother would have made it, with the cheese that made it sing.

The Gambino Empire

Understanding La Parmigiana requires understanding the family that built it.

The Gambino family left Sicily in the early 1970s. By then, the Italian economy had collapsed, and farming offered no future. Meanwhile, America beckoned with its impossible promise.

Peter Gambino arrived first and opened Baby Moon in Westhampton Beach in 1970. There, he converted a small post office building into a pizzeria, while his wife Salvatrice worked beside him. Their three daughters grew up watching their father glide between tables, making sure every guest felt like the most important person in the room.

Celestino arrived two years later with his wife Josephine and their seven children. Initially, he worked at Baby Moon while saving money and studying how his brother ran things. Through observation, he learned that success in restaurants came from consistency, not innovation. He also discovered that families trusted families. Most importantly, he learned that the East End was hungry for honest Italian food.

Then came La Parmigiana in 1974.

Shortly after, Conca d’Oro opened in Sag Harbor in 1975, founded by their sister Lina Venesina. For forty-two years, that restaurant anchored Main Street until it sold in 2017.

Next came Luigi’s Italian Specialties in East Hampton in 1996, opened by another sister, Sara Burriesci. Following that, Primavera Italian Specialties arrived in Montauk, opened by Sara’s son Enzo.

At their peak, the Gambino family operated six Italian restaurants across the East End. Together, they fed Southampton and Sag Harbor and East Hampton and Montauk. In doing so, they employed their children and cousins and in-laws. Ultimately, they created an infrastructure of Sicilian cuisine that defined what Italian food meant in the Hamptons.

The Front Counter Days

Old-timers remember when La Parmigiana sold slices from the front.

You walked in, ordered at the counter, paid cash, and ate standing up or took it to your car. The pizza was thin, the toppings were real, and the price was what pizza should cost. Kids from Southampton High School stopped by after practice, while contractors grabbed lunch between jobs. Eventually, summer people discovered it and returned every August.

This is how most successful Italian restaurants in America began. Not with dining rooms and wine lists, but with counters and cash registers and pizza by the slice. Although the profit margins were thin, the volume was reliable. Regulars came daily, and reputation spread by word of mouth.

Celestino spent decades behind that counter. Every morning, he made the dough himself. Throughout the day, he watched the ovens. Without fail, he greeted every customer by name or learned their name by the second visit. His children remember him coming home exhausted, covered in flour, smelling like tomatoes and olive oil.

The sit-down restaurant emerged gradually. First, a few tables in the back. Then, a proper dining room. After that, an outdoor patio. Finally, a wine bar. The evolution took decades, yet the slices never disappeared—they became the gateway drug for the full experience.

The Cathedral of Affordable Italian

Here’s what makes La Parmigiana remarkable in the modern Hamptons.

Almost everything on the menu costs under twenty-five dollars.

This is not a typo. In a zip code where restaurants routinely charge forty-five dollars for pasta, La Parmigiana serves eggplant parmigiana for something approaching reasonable. Similarly, the veal costs what veal used to cost. Likewise, the chicken comes breaded and fried and smothered in mozzarella without requiring a second mortgage.

Celestino built the restaurant for families, and he priced it for families. His children have maintained that commitment even as surrounding real estate values exploded. The logic is simple: locals need to eat year-round, and locals can’t afford what summer people pay. Therefore, serve the locals well and they’ll bring their families for fifty years.

Of course, this strategy only works if the food justifies the loyalty. At La Parmigiana, it does. The marinara sauce has earned devotees who claim they could drink it straight. Moreover, the portions arrive large enough to share or take home. Best of all, the cheese pulls and stretches and behaves exactly as cheese should.

Eleven Owners, One Kitchen

Celestino Gambino died of cancer in 2010 at age seventy-three.

During the final years of his life, he had built a glass addition onto his Southampton home. The addition housed a large marble table, commercial ovens, and a wood-burning stove. There, he sat at the head of the table and cooked for his family, teaching recipes he’d learned from his mother, who learned them from hers.

He left the restaurant to his surviving family members in equal shares. Today, eleven people own La Parmigiana: his son, his daughter-in-law, his siblings, and his grandchildren. Together, they run it, which is harder than it sounds. After all, family businesses collapse under less pressure than managing a restaurant in the Hamptons with eleven equal stakeholders.

Yet the Gambinos make it work. Celestino’s children Maria, Anna, Giovanna, Rosalia, and Rodolfo create the dishes. Meanwhile, the grandchildren bus tables and take orders and learn the same lessons Celestino learned from his own father, the Sicilian farmer who never saw what his son built.

The Year They Almost Sold

In August 2017, La Parmigiana went on the market for just under seven million dollars.

The news devastated Southampton. Locals had watched Conca d’Oro sell two months earlier, ending forty-two years of Gambino presence on Sag Harbor’s Main Street. Now La Parmigiana was following, and the empire appeared to be dissolving.

But something unexpected happened.

People spoke up. Regulars told the family they couldn’t imagine Southampton without La Parmigiana. Similarly, summer people who’d eaten there for decades said it was the only restaurant where they felt like part of the community. The feedback was overwhelming—and, apparently, convincing.

In September 2018, Rudy Gambino announced that the restaurant was no longer for sale. The family had listened to their community, and they would stay.

This almost never happens. Family restaurants in desirable markets rarely survive the calculus of real estate appreciation versus operating margins. After all, a seven-million-dollar sale would have set the family up for generations. Nevertheless, they chose to keep cooking instead.

What the Menu Teaches

The La Parmigiana menu runs to multiple pages and reveals a particular philosophy.

First: nothing surprising. The menu offers variations on fifteen Italian-American classics rather than reinventions. Eggplant parm. Veal parm. Chicken parm. Baked ziti. Lasagna. Linguine with clams. Spaghetti with meatballs. In other words, the creativity exists in execution, not conception.

Second: flexibility within tradition. The pasta section offers your choice of spaghetti or penne with almost everything. Additionally, the parmigiana dishes come with your choice of marinara, tomato sauce, or aglio olio. Substitutions exist because families have preferences.

Third: size matters. Portions arrive designed for sharing—a party of twelve can order six entrees and leave full. This is hospitality, not food service, because the goal is satisfaction, not precise portioning.

Fourth: dessert is not optional. The cannoli. The tiramisu. The sfogliatelle. The cheesecake. These are not afterthoughts; rather, these are the reason some people come.

The Code

Understanding La Parmigiana means learning how to order.

Start with the fried calamari. Not because it’s unique, but because it establishes what kind of restaurant this is. Crispy. Tender. Served with marinara that announces the kitchen’s competence.

Next, move to pizza if you’re testing. The Margherita proves the foundation: fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, proper sauce, thin crust. If this works, everything else will.

Then order the eggplant parmigiana if you want to understand what locals mean when they say this place is special. The ratio of cheese to eggplant to sauce approaches perfection, while the breading crisps without greasiness. Consequently, the dish arrives bubbling.

The veal parm hero deserves special mention as well. Cutlet, zesty sauce, generous mozzarella, bread that holds together. This is a meal, not a sandwich.

Bring your grandmother. Bring your children. Bring your contractor. The dining room accommodates all of them, and the outdoor patio opens April through October and allows dogs.

No reservations for small parties. However, call ahead for six or more.

What It Costs

Dinner with drinks will run you thirty to forty-five dollars per person. Admittedly, this is not cheap in absolute terms, but in the Hamptons, it’s practically an act of charity.

Pasta dishes range from twenty-one to thirty-six dollars, though most cluster around twenty-five. Notably, the secondo corsos (main courses) include a side of spaghetti or penne.

Pizza prices remain anchored to what pizza should cost. A specialty pie feeds a family, and individual slices still exist for the construction worker grabbing lunch.

Furthermore, BYO wine is available with a corkage fee, which means you can drink well without paying restaurant markup.

The Point

La Parmigiana exists because Celestino Gambino understood something about Southampton that developers and restaurateurs have forgotten.

People need places that don’t try to impress them. They need restaurants where the food arrives the same way every time. Moreover, they need family businesses that actually behave like families. Above all, they need prices that respect their budgets rather than exploit their locations.

The Hamptons has plenty of restaurants designed for Instagram, for impressing clients, for being seen. Certainly, these restaurants serve a purpose, and some of them serve excellent food. However, they don’t serve the function that La Parmigiana serves.

What La Parmigiana serves is continuity. It’s the restaurant where your parents took you in 1985 and your children will take their children in 2035. It’s the place where the menu never changes because it doesn’t need to change. It’s the kitchen where eleven family members share ownership because the alternative was unthinkable.

Celestino Gambino bet ten thousand dollars on a German delicatessen because Southampton felt like home.

Fifty-one years later, Southampton feels like home to his restaurant.

Facts Box

Address: 44-48 Hampton Road (NY-27A), Southampton, NY 11968

Phone: (631) 283-8030

Hours:

  • Closed January and February
  • Tuesday-Thursday: 12pm-9pm
  • Friday-Saturday: 12pm-9:30pm
  • Sunday: 12pm-9pm
  • Closed Monday

Price Range: $-$$

Reservations: Not required for small parties; call ahead for 6+

Cards: All major cards accepted; BYO wine with corkage

Parking: Street and lot parking available

Outdoor Dining: Patio open April-October (dog-friendly)

Year Established: 1974

Owners: The Gambino Family (11 family members)

Related Restaurants: Baby Moon (Westhampton Beach), Luigi’s Italian Specialties (East Hampton), Primavera (Montauk)