Kelsall's Royal Oak village pub and restaurant - one of the most successful in the Chester area – has launched a Chicago-themed Italian restaurant and gourmet pizzeria.

Colosimo's pizzeria & prohibition bar is a pizza restaurant named after America’s original gangster. "Big Jim" Colosimo pre-dated Al Capone and ran one of the early successful mob operations, as well as a Chicago restaurant, until the emerging Capone was rumoured to have had more than a passing role in Colosimo's bullet-riddled death in 1920.

Now the pizzeria has created a new alternative Italian food menu for the Royal Oak... and a radical new Italian restaurant atmosphere in which to enjoy it in Chester. And it’s a gluten-free pizza restaurant too.

"Our more casual Courtyard room is no ordinary pizzeria," says the Royal Oak's general manager Scott Lucy. "Chester customers can expect some of the best Italian food and most original Neapolitan pizzas they have ever experienced in any pizza restaurant – cooked in an authentic, specially imported Italian hardwood-fired pizza oven.

"As Big Jim would have said... this is Italian food to die for. An offer that no Chester pizza restaurant lover can refuse."

The crispy pizzas are created from only the freshest ingredients and then baked at 500oc - like the signature ‘Big Jim', the ‘Kosher Nostra', made with smoked salmon and sour cream, or the ‘New England' with honey shaved leg ham.

But there are homemade breads, bruschetta, baked camembert and crust-dippers too – just a small part of an Italian restaurant menu that’s carving out a new reputation among pizza restaurants for innovative Italian food.

The Royal Oak's established Oak Restaurant is carrying on, as normal, at the front of the building. "The usual great food at the same great prices... but now we're giving two totally different food choices," says Scott.

"It gives a new dimension to what we regard as Chester’s most successful village pub and destination Italian restaurant."

So... whether you call it a "pizzeria", a "pizza restaurant", an "Italian restaurant", we'll know what you mean.