Feed Me
The dish on Long Island's restaurant and food scene
Erica Marcus
Erica Marcus has covered food for Newsday since 1998. She has written features about the origins of Grandma pizza, the controversy over matzoh brei, the mystery of the soft-shell lobster and many many articles that attempt to justify the hundreds of dollars she spends every year on knives and knife-sharpening. Since 2005 she has written a weekly column, Burning Questions, in which she answers readers questions. In 2002 her article, “A Knish is Still a Knish,” was nominated for a James Beard award, and in 2003 she won the New York Newswomen’s Club Front Page award for her “Food Without The Fuss: a history of TV Dinners.” After graduation from Swarthmore College, Erica took a job at Crown Publishers, first in production and later in editorial. She rose to the rank of Senior Editor and worked on a wide range of books, including many award-winning cookbooks. She left book publishing for newspaper journalism the same year she left Manhattan for her ancestral home of Brooklyn, where she still lives. She eats most of her meals on Long Island.
Long Island restaurant reviews: This week’s picks
Photo credit: Jeremy Bales
“Fuego Picante means spicy fire,” writes Peter Gianotti of the newest establishment from the Singh Hospitality group. “But the restaurant isn’t so hot.” The “Mexican smokehouse and cantina” is the latest resident of this seemingly cursed location. Previous short-lived Singh tenants include RUB BBQ, Long Fin, BeSi and Kansas City Smokehouse.
Joan Reminick has much better luck at Millennium...
Read more »Soprano’s star to cook in North Babylon
Photo credit: WILL HART / HBO WILL HART
Joe Gannascoli, who played Vito, the doomed gay mobster on HBO’s “The Sopranos,” will be helping Salpino III Italian Market celebrate its 13th birthday.
On Saturday from noon to 2 p.m., Gannascoli, a trained chef who recently had a gig at Il Luogo in Lynbrook, will be cooking with Boar’s Head products and giving away samples of new items such as hummus and blackened turkey.
Salpino III...
Read more »Fried Chicken Night at Snaps in Wantagh
Photo credit: Newsday Erica Marcus
Wednesday evening is Chicken Night at Snaps American Bistro in Wantagh. For $5 you get four pieces of fried chicken (breast, wing, leg, thigh). Sides are also $5, so you can put together a very economical dinner.
I wish I had enjoyed my bird more, but it tasted more sweet than chicken-y. Snaps’ chef-owner Scott Bradley told me that he added brown sugar to the seasoned flour mixture into which...
Read more »Papa Razzi Westbury replaced by Dilettos
Photo credit: handout
Papa Razzi, the sprawling restaurant at the intersection of Glen Cove Road and Jericho Turnpike, has been transformed into Dilettos.
In February, the lone Long Island branch of a Boston-based chain, Westbury’s Papa Razzi, was bought by its general manager, Michael Barbosa. The restaurant never closed, but last week, the Papa Razzi signs came down and the Dilettos signs went up.
The name,...
Read more »Italian food that's friendlier in Woodmere
Photo credit: Newsday Erica Marcus
I know full well how cautious friends are about suggesting where we should dine. So when a South Nassau resident of long and affectionate acquaintance asked me to meet her at Friendlier Trattoria & Pizzeria in Hewlett, I knew she must be pretty confident of its merits.
Friendlier first opened in 1976 as a pizzeria. In 1991 the owners added a dining room — and, thus, the right to call itself...
Read more »Bareburger opens in Great Neck
Photo credit: Handout
Bareburger, the Queens-based chain that specializes in burgers both sustainable and exotic, opens Tuesday at 5 p.m. in Great Neck. For now, only dinner will be served; lunch should follow in about a week.
Bareburger opened its first location in Astoria in 2009 and, over the next four years, 11 more sprang up in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. The restaurants have a hip, rough-hewn look and...
Read more »Lemon Ice King of Corona comes to Huntington
Photo credit: amNewYork, 2007 / Lane Johnson
When the weather warms up, cheese isn’t the first thing you crave. So Ideal Cheese of Huntington is bringing in seasonal reinforcements, in the form of Italian ice. The 10-month-old shop, inside Huntington’s Crushed Olive oil-and-vinegar boutique, is now scooping up cups of Italian ice from the Lemon Ice King of Corona, a Queens institution.
“We only brought in five flavors,” said Ideal’s...
Read more »Kitchen A Bistro: Reservations welcomed in St. James
Photo credit: Johnny Simon
Eric Lomando has always had reservations about reservations. None of the chef’s three Suffolk County restaurants — Kitchen A Bistro and Kitchen A Trattoria in St. James, Orto in Miller Place — has ever accepted them for weeknight dinners. But about a month ago, Lomando changed course and now accepts bookings either by phone, at the website kitchenabistro.com or through Open Table.
The no-credit-card...
Read more »Long Island restaurant reviews: this week's picks
Photo credit: Jeremy Bales
In this week’s Newsday, Peter Gianotti reviews the revamped and retooled Jack Halyards American Bar & Grill in Oyster Bay. Under the assured direction of chef John Brill, “the successor to Fiddleheads, a seafood house, expands the repertoire in this dimly lit stretch of downtown Oyster Bay. Once more, there's life north of Main Street.”
Joan Reminick visits Maxwell’s in Islip, a boisterous...
Read more »North Fork Table and Inn, Southold: Kitchen changes
Photo credit: Brittany Wait
Stephan Bogardus has left the kitchen of North Fork Table and Inn in Southold.
The North Fork native came aboard as chef de cuisine in July 2011, a few months after Gerry Hayden, the restaurant’s executive chef and co-owner, was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). In March 2013, Bogardus competed on the Food Network show Chopped.
Bogardus said that he has plans to move to...
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