New Long Island restaurants to try this winter

When it comes to new restaurants, there isn't a slow season anymore. New places to eat continue to open around Long Island every week — and more are on the way. Here are some notable new eateries to get you through the winter, whether you want to visit the newest location of an established local chain or try something entirely different.

Gioia, Oyster Bay

Jesse Schenker, the resident chef at the helm of transforming Oyster Bay into a serious dining destination since the opening of 2 Spring in 2018, has unveiled Gioia, a love letter to the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy in the form of an intimate 10-table restaurant.

Gioia, meaning “joy,” is focused on Schenker's favorite Italian region. “I love everything about Emilia-Romagna — mortadella, gnocco fritto, prosciutto Parmigiano-Reggiano; I love the use of butter and stuffed pastas,” he said. “To me, the food of this region is equal parts comfort and culinary delight.” And Gioia is just that — cozy and comfortable, full of rustic, satisfying plates. The pastas are made in-house on an Arcobaleno machine; a Berkel slicer thins out the prosciutto de Parma, sourced from small Italian importers. Schenker looks to importer Marcelli Formaggi for the cheeses and cart selections.

The beauty of Gioia’s menu is in its simplicity. The starters are nearly all vegetables or sliced meats that can be served with gnocco frito or with housemade mozzarella (the only departure from the region; mozzarella originated in Campania). There’s tigella bread from Bologna filled with mortadella, marinated peppers and olives; grilled cauliflower over whipped ricotta and garnished with lemon, pistachio, and Parmigiano-Reggiano; and asparagus and mushrooms topped with a fried egg and Grana Padano.

The pastas, of which there are seven and a polenta, are often filled — a trademark of Emilia-Romagna — including a spinach ravioli with sage in brown butter and a seasonal, hearty cappellacci, folded like an open envelope, with squash, apple, ricotta and mosto cotto (grape syrup). A classic mortadella, sausage and prosciutto stuffed tortellini in brodo will run as a special. But it’s the gramigna, an oft-overlooked letter G-shaped pasta with spicy sausage, spinach and tomato pasta that seems to live on every table.

Nightly specials include T-bone steak (Monday), whole grilled fish (branzino on a recent visit, Wednesday), and lasagna Bolognese (Sunday) accompanied by a side dish (try the addictive crispy potatoes). The simplicity of the menu also extends to price; most all dishes are less than $30.

94 South St., Oyster Bay, 516-922-1660, gioianewyork.com. Open Monday through Sunday for dinner from 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., Saturday and Sunday for brunch from noon to 3 p.m.

— Marie Elena Martinez

Ruta Oaxaca, Woodbury

For Ruta Oaxaca and the band of brothers behind it — two sets of them, actually, Jose and Pedro Castillo, and chefs Carlos and Felipe Arellanos — the prudent thing would have been to wait for a liquor license before opening their latest restaurant, in Woodbury. But the pressure finally became too great.

“I had 140 phone calls from people asking when we’d be open,” said Jose Castillo, taking a break from obsessively checking his email for a go-ahead from the NYS Liquor Authority. “I told everyone the situation, and they said, that’s fine, we want your food.”

So the 62-seat bar-restaurant opened last Thursday(the liquor license came through Friday), adding another notch to the already popular Mexican concept that debuted in Astoria in 2021 and expanded to Patchogue last year, nabbing a spot on Newsday's Top 100 restaurants list. A fourth Ruta, in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood, currently scheduled to open in late January.

“I remember the first day we opened in Astoria. We had big dreams and not a big name, but we had that word Oaxaca,” said Castillo. “People have been there, they know Oaxacan food. So we had to wear those shoes well.”

As with all Rutas, the Woodbury menu is “Oaxaca predominant, but with dishes from all over the country,” featuring starters such as shrimp flautas ($15), guacamole customized to heat preference ($14) and spinach-and-corn empanadas ($14); taco trios of birria ($21) carnitas ($20) and al pastor ($19); quesadillas ($15-17); entrees such as grilled octopus ($34); and daily brunch favorites like huevos rancheros ($17) and chilaquiles ($16). But it’s the restaurant’s passion for and execution of Oaxacan dishes, especially those with Oaxacan mole, that have put Ruta on the map. The chicken mole enchiladas ($26) are definitive, their tortillas heavily stuffed and heavily smothered by a sauce redolent of cinnamon and smoke, its flavor drawn from weeks of kitchen prep time and centuries of southern Mexican cooking.

“My other two partners were born and raised in Oaxaca,” said Castillo of the Arellanos. “In their hometown, grandma comes in with fresh cooked chicken breast, fresh cooked mole, fresh corn tortillas, and you just sit at the table, wrapping the tortilla with the chicken and mole in it. You can’t ask for better.

“And once you add a little mezcal or Modelo, you can’t lose.”

8025 Jericho Tpke., Woodbury, 516-515-9620, rutaoaxacamex.com. Opening hours are Monday through Thursday from noon to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

— Scott Vogel

Cinnabar, Massapequa

Long Island has officially entered an era when Asian fusion can be as highbrow as an underground omakase bar. Consider it the third wave of Asian fusion, after the flashy Pan-Asian restaurants of the '90s and the latest explosion of Chinese, Thai and sushi spots.

This new crop of restaurants are able to produce both Chinese and Japanese dishes worth raving about. The interiors recall a Disneyland-esque fantasy, and despite the name that sounds like an alcoholic cinnamon roll shop, Cinnabar is quite dazzling.

The blockish building, tucked behind a White Castle on the outstretches of the Sunrise Mall, has been transformed to look like a nightclub version of The Forbidden City. Paneled with dark red tones and glowing purple lights, it looks nothing like the Sizzler it once was, before it was redesigned as Ginza sushi bar, and later, a Ben's Crab. Flushing restaurateur Cathy Ren put a considerable amount of energy into the newest iteration of the space, filling it with human-sized bird cages over tables in the anteroom. Around a corner, there's a moody atrium of a dining room, accented by a backlit sushi bar.

Ren has been involved with a host of other Asian concepts, and this wide array of restaurants uniquely positions Cinnabar to excel at dim sum, Sichuan cuisine and sushi alike. The bar even punches above its weight with an unexpected cocktail like the Open Sesame ($15), which works sesame oil into a sweet citrus vodka drink rimmed with sugar, but giving off savory, nutty aromas.

As you settle into your table, snacking on the complimentary nuts and pickled radishes served on a bed of decorative rocks, you'll notice servers delivering vases of what look to be bulbous lychee fruits with crinkly red skin. They're actually savory shrimp “lollipops” ($13), coated with an airy shield of dough puffs. The lollipops actually taste just as good as they look, the light crust giving way to delicate minced shrimp.

Dumplings are a hallmark of the kitchen but the most interesting one is listed with the entrees. Showcased in a large red tray, the duck breast in crispy taro ($35) is a traditional dim sum pastry, with a glow-up. Fried taro puffs are croquettes that typically have a crackly batter and a rich tuberous taro center, but here they're also filled with thick slices of duck breast.

The sizable menu also has classic Cantonese American dishes like hot and sour soup, General Tso's chicken and beef and broccoli, but those are sandwiched between Sichuan and nouveau Chinese creations like an heirloom egg custard with freshwater eel, foie gras and truffle oil ($18). Don't overlook the dandan noodles ($15) on the last page of the menu, as the thick knife-tapered noodles come in an assertive sauce with a heavy douse of Chinese vinegar.

45 Carmans Rd., Massapequa, 516-308-4648. Open 2-10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 2-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

— Andi Berlin

Wuyang Casa Japanese BBQ, Lake Grove

The Ferris wheel at Wuyang Casa Japanese BBQ was larger than it looks. It took two servers to set the golden contraption onto the table, as it was about 4 feet tall with multiple levels of swinging compartments, each holding a paper boat filled with raw meat. The staffer carefully removed one of the meats and placed it on the hot Korean barbecue grill in the center of the table.

This supersized golden Ferris wheel — a recent TikTok sensation in San Francisco — was, startlingly, only one of the many stunts at this new restaurant in Lake Grove. After the pandemic led to a four-year delay on the project, the team behind Stony Brook's Red Tiger Dumpling House has gone all out with their new restaurant. The entrance is pure suburban kitsch: A lavish Chinese pagoda juts out onto the sleepy shopping center. It's crowned by two imperial guard lions that look out onto a Lidl supermarket and Retro Relics antiques store.

Inside the cavernous red temple of a dining room, roaming dim sum carts are filled with strikingly colorful buns. State-of-the-art barbecue grills inside the tables suck up the smoke, and the food menu is unbound by the traditional confines of cuisine. Is it Japanese? A hybrid of Korean and Chinese flavors? The definitions are murky, but the restaurant takes some cues from the corporate Japanese barbecue chain Gyu-Kaku, which has locations in Manhattan and Flushing, Queens. Both use the same nifty golden barbecue grills and invite you to toast your own s'mores for dessert.

The $75.99 combo comes with enough meat to feed four people, and that's without all the rainbow dumpling appetizers.

Skip the dim sum unless you're with a big party. Get straight to the grilling, because it's … interesting. Side dishes include pickled radishes, but they're neon blue. There are also stringy potatoes and raw onion slices in a brown sauce. Dips include a spice mixture of cumin and nuts. And then there's the Wagyu beef, the “snowflake beef,” the beef ribs, brisket, beef tongue, “superior” fatty beef, thin cut rib-eye, beef belly and garlic shrimp.

Delicious it was, but the savory feast nevertheless felt like a mere precursor to the complimentary s'mores dessert. Grilling your own marshmallows on a Korean barbecue grill, with graham crackers and melty chocolate? Now that's amazing.

2880 Middle Country Rd., Lake Grove, 631-619-6502. Open 12:30-9:30 p.m. daily.

— Andi Berlin

The Restaurant at Northport Hotel, Northport

For Kevin O’Neill, the opening of the restaurant at the Northport Hotel is the culmination of more than seven years of demolition, construction, legal wrangling, supply-chain woes and staffing challenges. It was 2016 when he and partner Richard Dolce purchased the property at the corner of Main Street and Woodside Avenue with the goal of providing Northport with a destination boutique hotel that would complement their other village venue, the John W. Engeman Theater.

The hotel finally debuted in July and, shortly thereafter, the restaurant opened to friends and family. It took less than a week for O’Neill and Dolce to realize that the team they had hired “was not going to be able to deliver the dining experience we wanted.” They “put everything on pause while we looked for a new team” and the Restaurant at Northport Hotel 2.0 relaunched in September with a new kitchen crew led by executive chef Michael Ross, whose most recent gigs were Primehouse in Garden City and Pearl in Island Park.

Ross’ opening menu acknowledges Northport’s maritime history, with lots of seafood: Lobster salad with Asian pears and Kaluga caviar; grilled octopus with chickpeas and red-pepper hummus; malfadine pasta with lobster, crabmeat and spinach; seafood stew with saffron-ginger butter; and pan-blackened swordfish with sweet potatoes, shrimp hash and brandy-étouffée sauce.

Meat eaters will find Italian meatballs with ricotta; house-smoked candied bacon with cabbage slaw; grilled lamb chops with Greek salad; and grilled pork chops with hot cherry peppers, fingerling potatoes and balsamic glaze. Starters range from $16 to $26; pastas and flatbreads, $17 to $29; mains from $43 to $46. Prime steaks start at $58 for a 10-ounce filet mignon to $69 for a bone-in cowboy rib-eye.

The owners spared no expense with the facility. The luxurious 15-seat bar gives way to a dining room whose white walls and tablecloths are complemented by charcoal accents and handblown light fixtures suspended from the double-height ceiling by black cords.

225 Main St., Northport, 631-628-7000, thenorthporthotel.com. Open Monday-Thursday 4:30 to 9 p.m., Friday-Saturday 4:30 to 10 p.m.

— Erica Marcus

Pietro's, Roslyn

After 66-year-old Jolly Fisherman closed in May, the bread baskets were barely cold when Pietro’s of Manhattan announced that it would be taking over the pond-side location. It opened its doors to the public Nov. 16.

Pietro's was founded in 1932 by Italian brothers Pietro, Natale and Luigi Donini. In 1992, it was bought by Bill Bruckman Sr. who, with his sons, Bill Jr. and David, has stewarded it ever since. (Bill Jr. oversees the Roslyn location; David runs the one on East 43rd St.) Bill Jr. said the family had been thinking about a Long Island location for years, and looking seriously for the last two. “It’s a natural for us,” he said. “Our client base in the city is at least 50% from Long Island.”

The Bruckmans’ renovation was less extreme than the one undertaken by Jolly’s owner, Steven Scheiner, in 2012. The three dining rooms now skew more burgundy-and-mauve than blue-and-white but the overall vibe remains no-nonsense contemporary. The wood-paneled bar is virtually unchanged. Bruckman said that, even before he opened, “customers yelled at me not to do anything to the bar, so we just painted the ceiling and changed the lighting to make it a little bit cozier.”

The menu is another thing entirely. Jolly was one of Long Island’s last remaining traditional fish houses; Pietro’s is straight-ahead Italian American. The “soft opening” menu is about half the size of the one in Manhattan and features baked clams ($25), Caesar salad ($20), spaghetti with meatballs ($29), linguine with clam sauce ($34), chicken or veal Parmesan or Francese ($37). There’s a New York strip steak ($61) and a fillet of sole (fried, broiled or meunière, $42). Two of the Manhattan location’s signature dishes have migrated to Roslyn: pasta shells a la Nat (veiled in a rich, bone-marrow sauce, sprinkled with Parmesan and then baked, $29) and chicken Pietro (bone-in chunks showered with onions, peppers and mushrooms, $39).

There’s one Roslyn-only dish: “Jolly Pietro,” an appetizer composed of a small lobster tail, four clams on the half shell and three jumbo shrimp. “We wanted to create something to honor Steve and his family,” Bruckman said.

Prices are on the high side — as they tend to be in Roslyn village — but portions are large. The abbreviated wine list is dominated by name brands.

25 Main St., Roslyn, 516-407-3255, pietroslongisland.com. Open Tuesday-Thursday 4:30-9 p.m., Friday-Saturday 4:30-9:30 p.m., Sunday 3-8 p.m., closed Monday.

— Erica Marcus