How to celebrate Mardi Gras at Long Island restaurants

Most years, that bead-slinging, shirt-lifting zoo of dipsomaniacal excess known as Mardi Gras is a take-it-or-leave-it thing. Nice, but not obligatory. Usually, midwinter cabin fever and all its aggravations find relief in ChapStick or couples therapy. Not this year. Tensions are higher now, problems more urgent. All your concerns — personal, political, environmental, coronaviral — become more concerning with each passing day. Indeed, never before have so many been worried about so much.

If together we find ourselves in the deepest of emotional trenches, only together will we escape it. Cue the calls for ecstatic ritual and collective effervescence (hat tip: Emile Durkheim). Bring on the ball and the bash, the beads and Bacchus. Drastic times require drastic measures, and what is a religious observance with roots in pagan fertility rites if not that? This is the year for looking up Saturnalian in the dictionary and responding accordingly, for an unabashed espousal of voodoo juice, hurricanes, conga lines. This is the year for Mardi Gras, and this is how you do it.

GET THE LOOK

The first thing you need to do? Dress for a fest. “People go to all different extremes,” says Lisa Livermore of Bayou Jones in Merrick, who counsels sartorial extravagance (“Wear wigs, sequined dresses, short dresses, anything garish and fun”) keyed to local sensibilities.

CONSIDER YOUR DRINK

Specialty  cocktails like those at Sayville’s Cafe Joelle offer a great way to booze it up. “We have your standard hurricane,” explains mixmaster and co-owner Jake Byrne, “and then a bourbo-cane”--the bar’s favorite spirit--“and a NOLAgroni.” A what, now? “It’s a Negroni but with gin that’s infused with butterfly pea tea,” giving the drink a purplish hue. Byrne also subs Aperol for Campari, creating a cocktail that’s “a bit less aggressive.” Because, hey, it’s not that kind of night.

PICK YOUR PARTY

Whatever you wear, make sure to find a swanky haunt that’s as festive as your frock. A place like Top Hat. “We have three huge chandeliers that go down the middle of the bar, and bottles of scotch, Irish whiskey and bourbon on the walls of the dining room,” says the Bellmore eatery’s manager, Ronan McClory. “That’s live stock on the walls.” (No, not livestock — live stock.) And that’s before they decorate. “We’ll have masks, a dining room that’s covered with beads, purple-colored everything,” and a player piano in the unlikely event the evening starts to drag.

EAT WITH ABANDON

On Fat Tuesday, it’s fine to eat like it’s your last meal, because all over the island you’ll find exceptional étouffée, gumbo, jambalaya and other favorites, the appeal of Nawlins cuisine being both universal and mysterious. “I’ve always said it’s because every single ethnic group is represented in Louisiana cooking,” muses Joan Gallo, owner of Biscuits & Barbecue, which serves a Mardi Gras menu year-round in Mineola. “The Germans brought the sausage, the African-Americans brought the yams, the Italians the muffuletta, and the French Canadians — well, they were the Cajuns.”

EXPECT A CROWD

Whatever your normal level of noise tolerance, try to be at home in a crowd on Mardi Gras. “Reservations are highly recommended,” warns owner-chef Eric Rifkin, who’s seen it all in his 10 years of Fat Tuesdays at Bobbique in Patchogue. “People pretend all the time that they’re on the list.” As for attitude, “nobody judges, the band plays. It’s just amazing when a good night and good food bring people together.”

GO ALONG WITH IT

“It’s not like we have a parade that goes through or anything, but we try to make it as fun as possible.” Jesse March isn’t being defensive. He wants you to embrace the hoopla. As chef at Blackbirds’ Grille in Sayville, he’s usually quietly working away in the kitchen, but the roar of the crowd is never far away. “It gets packed by the afternoon. Of course, happy hour’s always packed here anyway.”

CONSIDER CAKE

Don’t forget to eat cake, specifically fresh-baked King Cake. Just give Mara Levi two days notice. “I bake to order, and make 200 of them a year,” she says. Levi could bake more, but the oven’s needed for the Louisiana specialties she serves daily at Mara’s Southern Kitchen in Syosset. You get to choose one of four cake fillings as well as the color of the tiny baby hidden somewhere inside. Not those colors. “I’ve been doing purple, green and gold babies for years so that we’re politically correct.”

GO FOR MUSIC

At Big Daddy’s, Mardi Gras is a 7-night affair, which means lots of chances to get lost in the music at this live band-loving restaurant. “It’s a very fun and festive week here for sure, with lots of great food on offer,” reports managing partner Brian Sheskier. Whether you’re a fan of jazz or funk, the King Cobras or Harmonica Bill, Big Daddy’s is there for you. The Massapequa eatery loves tunes of every type, “and Mardi Gras allows us to really highlight this to a wider audience.”

STAY UP LATE

On Mardi Gras, the jazz and blues club Treme in Islip will host 10 or so musicians known as the Slap Yo Mama Jazz Brigade (no relation to Slap Ya Mama Cajun seasoning, if you’re wondering), a “great big band that gets together once a year for me,” notes owner Josh Thompson. “I keep pushing for more tuba, but nobody wants to play it.” Why go to all the trouble, you ask? Because the fun ends at midnight, after which “we have to all be good for the next 40 days.” A sobering thought — unless you’re Thompson, that is. “I myself give up church for Lent,” he says.

By Scott Vogel

scott.vogel@newsday.com

Newsday writer and restaurant critic Scott Vogel aims for a refreshing, gimlet-eyed take on the Long Island food scene, often while drinking a refreshing gimlet.