Rockville Centre's Aperitif to close, transform into Sage & Sea

Aperitif, the French bistro in the heart of Rockville Centre, will serve its last supper this Sunday. After a renovation that owner Onur Otkas hopes will take no more than two months, it will reemerge as Sage & Sea Coastal Kitchen & Bar, a more casual concept offering more small plates, more Mediterranean dishes and lower prices. The new name also serves to tie the new eatery to Otkas’ Sage Bistro Moderne, which opened in Woodbury in 2009.

It was a year later that Otkas and Julio Velasquez (who has since left the building and moved out of state) opened Aperitif. With its mirrored walls, red upholstery and globe light fixtures, it was every inch the bistro Français and the menu was full of classics such as escargots, mussel pots, steak frites, sole meunière and crème brûlée.

That, Otkas noted, was the problem. "A French bistro is expensive to run. People expect you to have rack of lamb, foie gras, duck, Dover sole — and if you have a burger or a fish taco on the menu, they say, ‘That’s not a French bistro!’ " But, he continued, while customers might crave those dishes on the weekend, that's not what they are looking for on weekdays, and, "You wind up having two menus."

Looking for a concept that was more affordable, with more vegetarian and gluten-free choices, he and chef Giovanni Alas settled on the Mediterranean, a region that Otkas, born in Turkey, knows well. Accordingly there will be plenty of mezze — hummus, tzatziki, tabouli, eggplant dip — plus shawarma and kofte, along with a raw bar, crudos, tartars.

Otkas’ career on Long Island began in 2006 when he opened Sage Bistro in Bellmore. It was sold in 2019 and succeeded, briefly, by Epicure NY and then Casarecce (2022 to 2023) and Bar Americano (2024 to 2026). He opened Brasserie Persil in 2008, sold it in 2012; it closed in 2024 and the space is now Joey’s Bold Flavors.