Fall Restaurant Week returns to Long Island

The days get cooler, the nights get longer and it’s time, once again, for Long Island’s Fall Restaurant Week. The promotion runs from Oct. 29 to Nov. 5 and includes more than 120 restaurants, all of which will be serving three-course, fixed-price dinner menus for $29, $39 or $46 — some restaurants are offering menus at more than one price point. If a restaurant is open for lunch, it must offer a two-course, fixed-price menu for $24.

Restaurant Week is a great time to check out new or under-the-radar restaurants. And, as always, we have some suggestions:

Arlo Kitchen & Bar

The weather is still warm enough to enjoy the wooded deck at this Northport restaurant ($46 dinner), although the interior of this multilevel restaurant is no slouch either. Your entree might be the half-pound prime Arlo burger, branzino with sweet-pea puree and greens or campanelle with lamb ragù.

Brasserie By Chef Aless

Indulge in a classic French dinner ($46) at the sprawling Massapequa spot whose chef, Alessandra MacCarthy, cut her teeth at her family’s Manhattan bistro, Mon Petit Café.

Nomiya

The swanky Garden City sushi and izakaya (Japanese bar food) specialist opened last year with a signature roll, — tuna, lobster, asparagus and rice, wrapped in foil and torched before service — that is featured on the dinner menu ($39), though not for lunch ($24). Nomiya opened last year at Roosevelt Field’s “dining district” where you’ll also find two Newsday Top 100 restaurants participating in Restaurant Week: Northern Italian Osteria Morini ($24 lunch and $39 dinner) and Tom Colicchio’s farm-to-table Small Batch ($46 dinner).

Tulum Taco

If you’re looking for a value-priced lunch ($24), stylish Tulum Taco in Mineola has a winner: After your choice of guacamole, ceviche or fried yuca, you have your choice of three tacos — from traditional pork carnitas or braised chicken tinga, to more fanciful smashed meatballs or seared tuna. There are three tacos per order, on homemade tortillas.

Bayberry

This summer, Islip’s long-standing gastropub Maxwell's was renovated and relaunched as an American bistro. Both the $24 lunch menu and $46 diner menu feature new favorites such as French onion soup, chickpea fries and Bayberry chicken (in lemon butter, served with fries and salad). Dessert choices at dinner include the tempting-sounding blackberry tres leches cake with maple-glazed almonds. 

Foster

The chef-driven tavern that took over Sea Cliff’s Metropolitan Bistro will be offering a $46 dinner menu that showcases its wood-fired pizza oven and wood-fired grill.

Vicinato Kitchen & Bar 

In Hauppauge, the successor to the short-lived Gusto Osteria is introducing itself with a $39 menu with highlights including eggplant rollatini and sautéed mussels for starters, seafood linguine and skirt steak with a Barolo-mushroom sauce for mains, panna cotta and “broken” cannoli for dessert.

R. AIRE at The Hampton Maid

The $46 menu at this Hampton Bays spot includes the contemporary Spanish restaurant’s excellent seafood paella.

Stone Creek Inn

In East Quogue, a Newsday Top 100 restaurant is offering an extensive $46 menu including fall squash velouté soup and crispy rice with Scottish salmon for starters, roasted local cod amandine and confit of Crescent duck leg for mains. Hard to choose between the four desserts: pear sundae, crème brulée, apple tart tatin or chocolate cremeux.

The other participating Top 100 restaurants are Five Ocean in Long Beach ($24 lunch, $46 dinner), House of Dosas in Hicksville ($24 lunch, $29 dinner), Bluebird Kitchen in Bellmore ($24 lunch, $46 dinner) and Ruta Oaxaca in Patchogue ($23 lunch, $46 dinner).

Neither beverages nor tip are included in the set price, and while the menus must be offered throughout the eight days of the promotion, restaurants can suspend them after 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4. See the full list of restaurants along with many menus at longislandrestaurantweek.com.

A previous version of this story featured the Shelter Island restaurant Leon 1909, which has withdrawn from Long Island Restaurant Week participation.