New Long Island restaurants to try in 2026

Pho Che, Great Neck

A local Vietnamese chain that just popped up on Northern Boulevard may have the largest bowl of noodle soup in Nassau. Pho Che got its start in Flushing, Queens, and opened a second location in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 2023. Co-owner David Lee opened his latest Great Neck spot in the former Ponte Mollo Italian restaurant in December after a process that lasted more than a year. His long-awaited restaurant offers a compact and approachable menu of Vietnamese greatest hits, like banh mi sandwiches, vermicelli noodle salads called bún and 19 varieties of pho. The menu is rather straightforward and doesn't include any hard-to-find regional fare, but what it lacks in variety it makes up for in size. Most people will order the small portion. But a pro move here is to split a banh mi, which has some nice, crusty bread but not much meat in it. And then get a large soup, which was big enough to feed two people on its own.

Ada Mediterranean Cuisine, Middle Island

Ada took over the low-slung freestanding building that, for decades previously, had been Lombardi’s Italian restaurant. All dips, kebabs and rotisseries are kept in the kitchen and there are two white-tableclothed dining rooms. A liquor license is forthcoming; for now, you can bring your own wine or beer. The name says "Mediterranean," but this is a Turkish restaurant through and through and the menu features most of that cuisine’s greatest hits: Starters include lentil soup, stuffed grape leaves, eggplant salad with peppers and tomato sauce, cheese "cigars," pan-fried beef liver and zucchini pancakes. Mains include both standards — doner, shish, Adana and Iskender kebabs, lamb chops and chicken chops (boned-out thighs) — but also some deeper cuts such as manti (tiny ravioli), imam bayildi (literally "the priest fainted," consisting of stuffed baby eggplant) and hunkar begendi (cubes of lamb atop a smoked-eggplant puree). Plus kebab and gyro sandwiches and wraps and pide (Turkish pizza).

Pour Authority, Farmingdale

The self-pour beer spot Pour Authority has opened at 333 Main St. after about two years of preparation. Visitors can try brews from 40 taps, paying by the ounce using a card issued at check-in. Owner Ritu Kumar said selections include at least eight from Long Island breweries, like Montauk Brewing Company's Pilsner. Guest IDs are checked at walk-in, with patrons issued a card with a 32-ounce limit. Besides beer, there's a menu of comfort food like fried dumplings and Bavarian pretzels with beer cheese dip. Vegetarian dishes include "chorizo" flatbread, cauliflower tacos topped with Thai slaw and drizzled with chipotle aioli. Burgers, bowls and salads are also available.

Skara Taverna, Williston Park

Dino Philippou had had his eye on 75 Hillside Ave. since the Greek-inflected steakhouse The Butcher’s Bar & Grill closed in 2020.  What attracted Philippou was not just the short commute from his home but the fact that the kitchen had a charcoal grill. Philippou was the general manager of Plori when it opened in Carle Place and, before that, had operated Astoria’s Greek restaurant-nightclub Cavo for almost two decades. To run Skara’s kitchen he recruited Gregory Zapantis, currently a chef-partner at Sea Bar in Great Neck, opening chef at now-closed Americana Eatery & Bar in Great Neck and a veteran of the Manhattan restaurants Estiatorio Milos, Trata, Kellari and Thalassa. Noting that most of Long Island’s ambitious Greek restaurants specialize in fish, the two created a menu that doubles down on meat. From the charcoal grill come dry-aged skirt steak, strip, cowboy rib-eye for two, pork chop and lamb chops. But then they tripled down on meat, installing a rotisserie for large-format roasts that are sold by the pound: chicken, pork shoulder, suckling pig and lamb. For the best selection of these rotisserie meats, dine Thursday to Sunday.