Feed Me
The dish on Long Island's restaurant and food scene
San Marzano in Merrick: Margherita gets beat
Photo credit: Newsday / Erica Marcus
Decades of serious pizza consumption have taught me that despite the panoply of pizza options, at most serious pizzerias the simple Margherita is hard to beat. Well, last night at San Marzano in Merrick, my pizza assumptions were upended.
We much preferred the Caprino, a surprisingly harmonious assemblage of fontina, goat cheese, caramelized onions, shiitake and button mushrooms, garlic and...
Read more »J&R's Steak House, Stony Brook: Closed in Sandy's wake
Photo credit: Randee Daddona
In Stony Brook, J&R’s Steak House has closed following severe damage from superstorm Sandy. There are no plans for reopening it, manager Andy Stamos Jr. said.
The 20-year-old Stony Brook spot was the original link in what has become a growing Long Island chain of moderately priced steak houses. “We had a lot of good memories and met a lot of good people there,” Stamos said, adding...
Read more »This week’s restaurant reviews
Photo credit: Alessandro Vecchi
Joan Reminick visits Biscuits & Barbeque, “secreted away in an industrial section of Mineola” in a 1940s vintage railroad-car diner in whose “gleaming interior, some of the most satisfying Louisiana-style food in these parts awaits.”
This week’s fine-dining review takes in Jellyfish, the waterside spot in Centerport whose kitchen is helmed by James McDevitt (formerly of Four Food Studio,...
Read more »Lawson Pub, Oceanside, rebounds from flood damage
Photo credit: Chris Ware
A few weeks ago, Lawson Pub in Oceanside was under 5 feet of water, half of its furniture floating down the street.
The restaurant is now up and running again, said chef-owner Joseph Bonacore, who had the foresight to stow his major electrical and mechanical equipment up on the roof before superstorm Sandy hit.
Getting the place in shape was undeniably rough work, said Bonacore,...
Read more »Blue Duck Bakery Cafe hatches in Riverhead
Photo credit: Newsday Joan Reminick
Blue Duck Bakery Cafe just made its downtown debut in Riverhead, the third hatchling in a bakery chain with branches in Southampton and Southold.
Keith Kouris, who, with his wife, Nancy, owns the bakeries, said that the location is ideal, since it’s situated between the two Forks and is also convenient to home — which is in Aquebogue.
Artisan bread is what the Blue Duck name has...
Read more »Hoptron Brewtique opens tomorrow in Patchogue
Photo credit: Handout
Beer geeks rejoice: Long Island’s first growler-filling station-craft-beer retailer-tasting room-home-brew supply store opens tomorrow in Patchogue at noon. The Hoptron Brewtique aims to fill all those roles, plus serve a small menu of beer-friendly bites. According to Amanda Danielson, who owns the business with Succety Lara, “We’re neither a bar nor a retail shop, but a mixture of both.”
The...
Read more »Top Chef alum Carla Hall to sign cookbooks at Book Revue
Photo credit: Handout
The irrepressible Carla Hall, a finalist on Bravo’s “Top Chef” and a co-host on ABC’s “The Chew,” will be appearing at Book Revue in Huntington on Monday, Dec. 3, at 7 p.m.
Hall, whose cooking reflects her Tennessee childhood — in particular, her grandmother’s Sunday suppers — will be talking about and signing her new cookbook, “Cooking with Love: Comfort Food That Hugs You” (Free Press Hardcover,...
Read more »Tapas: My big problem with small plates
Photo credit: Bruce Gilbert
Don’t get me wrong; I like tapas. I have fond memories of sidling up to the bar in Spain, ordering a chilled glass of Manzanilla sherry and enjoying successive plates of shrimp in garlic sauce, serrano ham, croquetas de bacalao (salt-cod fritters), pan tomate (toasted bread scraped with ripe tomato), tortilla espagnole (potato-studded omelet). But I am growing increasingly sour on Long Island’s...
Read more »Garden City Hotel: New chef
Photo credit: Handout
Michael Mandato, a veteran of luxury hotels in the United States and Canada, has joined the Garden City Hotel as executive chef. He succeeds Steven De Bruyn, who left in September.
Mandato grew up in Oceanside and his first food-service job was in the kitchen of South Nassau Communities Hospital. A 1985 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in upstate Hyde Park, he worked at French...
Read more »Keith Luce reportedly out at Luce & Hawkins, Jamesport
Photo credit: Gordon M. Grant
Newsday All-star chef Keith Luce has left Luce & Hawkins, the highly regarded restaurant at Jedediah Hawkins Inn in Jamesport, according to his Facebook page and several North Fork restaurant sources.
Luce, who was executive chef and a partner at the restaurant and inn, would not comment on his job status. Lia Polites, the property’s principal owner, could not be reached. ...
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