Italian restaurant Vivo Osteria in Glen Cove gets new owners, menu
Tapas at Vivo Osteria in Glen Cove, from left: grilled skirt steak, chicken satay, zucchini rolls and grilled calamari. Credit: Vivo Osteria
Less than a year after it opened in Glen Cove, Vivo Osteria has new owners and a new menu. Emanuel and his wife, Tatyana Benitez, have taken over the restaurant next to Cove’s Discount Wine & Liquors on Glen Avenue.
When it first debuted in December, Vivo’s original owner, Benedetto Marotta, described it as a “modern Italian tavern with a big emphasis on local products,” but the restaurant never lived up to its ambitions.
Emanuel (executive chef) and Tatyana (dining room manager) are keeping the Italian orientation, but have added a tapas menu that includes grilled skirt steak with chimichurri, chicken satay, gluten-free zucchini rolls with vodka sauce and grilled calamari with cherry tomatoes and balsamic. A choice of any four is $30.
Dinner starters ($10 to $14) include mussels fra diavolo, white bean and kale salad and the house salad, with mesclun, candied walnuts, dried cranberries, goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette. Entrees ($19 to $33) include rosemary lamb chops with roasted cauliflower, gnocchi with wild mushroom-Cognac cream sauce and pepper-crusted pork loin with roasted garlic cream and potato galette.
Among the pizzas from the wood-burning oven are cipollina (with onion jam, goat cheese, mozzarella and pancetta, $15) and melanzana (fried eggplant with vodka sauce and Fontina cheese, $14).
Emanuel Benitez is a Long Island native who graduated from Suffolk County Community College Culinary School in Riverhead. Before starting his own catering company, benitezcatering.com, he worked at DO & CO, an international company specializing in airport and airline food service, and eventually was appointed halal chef for Emirates, Royal Morocco, EgyptAir and Etihad airlines.
Vivo Osteria is at 242 Glen Cove Ave., Glen Cove, 516-801-1450, vivoosteria.com
