Latin restaurants serving up dance

Salsa: It's something spicy to eat and it's also a kind of exuberant dance that makes you swing your hips and move your feet with abandon.

Now, eating and dancing Latin style are coming together on Long Island at a small cadre of restaurants offering evenings that combine the chips with the dips.

At Gallo, an authentic Colombian restaurant in Patchogue, you can start dinner with house-made nachos and salsa and, afterward, take salsa and bachata lessons in the dance studio upstairs.

At Puglia's in Garden City, specials like seviche and paella are on order on Latin Dance Night, when a DJ spins or a live band plays.

Four Food Studio, a Melville dining destination, offers potent Latin drinks and a smokin' brisket taco. Eat first, then take a brief lesson and lose yourself to the Latin club scene.

And at Mirelle's, a restaurant and catering hall in Westbury, dance teacher and DJ Louis Del Prete kicks off Thursday nights with a 45-minute lesson. "We get beginners to intermediate to advanced," says Del Prete, adding, "We're always getting new people." After class, dancers take a quick turn at the buffet table -- chicken and rice; sometimes, fried plantains. Then, Del Prete goes into DJ mode with a mix of Latin dances -- cha-cha, salsa, bachata, merengue -- as well as hustle and West Coast swing.

Here are some places where you can dance and dine, Latin style: