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Best bistros

BY PETER M. GIANOTTI | Newsday Restaurant Reviewer

November 8, 2006

The words "bistro" and "brasserie" undergo a lot of definitions on Long Island. But the best way to categorize each is that a bistro is pretty small and mainly homey; a brasserie, pretty big and very busy. Plenty of fruity red wine flows in a bistro; beers highlight a brasserie.

That said, here's a quintet of local "bistros" of varying stripes. You'll have to wait for a new brasserie -- or at least until Waterzooi Petite Brasserie, which reigned in Rockville Centre, relocates and reopens.

Alison. 95 School St., Bridgehampton; 631-537-7100. Alison certainly looks the part, from tin ceiling to copper bar. The blue-and-white scheme enlarges the cozy place. The evocative food includes onion-fennel soup with finnan haddie; pork chop with chard and plums; crayfish, lobster and oyster fricassee; grilled shell steak Bordelaise; and pan-roasted chicken with mashed potatoes.

Bistro Cassis. 55B Wall St., Huntington; 631-421-4122. The warmest and best of the bistro trio that includes Bistro Citron in Roslyn and Bistro Saint Germain in Mineola. Fine service, too. Try the crisp duck a l'orange, bracing onion soup, frisee salad with bacon and poached egg, and a new dish, the lobster sandwich on brioche. Chocolate tart for dessert.

Emerson's. 69 Deer Park Ave., Babylon; 631-669-2333. Emerson's combines new American and French fare with aplomb. The 50-seater has considerable charm and very good food. Recommended: short ribs and grits, pork filet mignon with plums, seared halibut and artichoke stew, avocado-and-crab salad, crab cakes with chile-sparked aioli, and ice cream-filled profiteroles.

George Martin. 65 North Park Ave., Rockville Centre; 516-678-7272. A stylish American riff on the bistro theme, George Martin is lively and packed. Some tasty choices are the onion soup, sesame tuna with Thai peanut sauce, California cocktail salad with shrimp and avocado, crab cakes with Sonoma Jack cheese, roast chicken with garlicky mashed potatoes, a 16-oz. New York strip steak, and the "retro" banana cream pie.

Novita. 860 Franklin Ave., Garden City; 516-739-7660. This bright spot is a bridge among bistro, brasserie, wine bar and restaurant. It does have 100 wines by the glass. To go with them, consider the swordfish "chop" Livornese, mushroom-and-fontina rice balls, bucatini alla carbonara, sirloin steak with Gorgonzola-spiked potato hash, and the cinnamon-sugar dusted "street fair zeppole."