Luigi Q closes in Hicksville, replaced by Ficarra Ristorante
Linguine with clams at Ficarra in Hicksville. Credit: Newsday/Erica Marcus
Regular customers were just learning that the sign at Hicksville’s singular Italian restaurant, Luigi Q, had come down when another sign went up in its place: Ficarra Ristorante. With no fanfare, owner Luigi Quarta has left the Long Island dining scene after 25 years, selling his business to Demetra and Carl Mattone.
Luigi Q was one of the Island's most divisive restaurants, where regulars enjoyed personalized service and off-the-menu delicacies, while newcomers were often surprised by the no-kids, no-shorts policies. Quarta did not immediately respond to a text message for comment.
Carl Mattone, a developer, brings his Sicilian heritage to the table: His mother, Irene Ficarra Mattone, grew up in Ficarra, in northeastern Sicily and her recipes for dishes such as caponata, arancini, pasta alla Norma and swordfish involtini will be in regular rotation alongside a pan-Italian-Italian American-New American menu.
His wife, Demetra, has spent a lifetime in hospitality, first in her family’s restaurant-supply business and, later, as director of corporate events for Schneps Media where she orchestrated galas for hundreds of people in New York, Philadelphia and Palm Beach, Florida. After 10 years at Schneps, she decided it was time to go out on her own.
It was just a few months ago, she recalled, that the Mattones finished up their shopping at the Plainview Center and noticed, for the first time, Luigi Q across South Oyster Bay Road. "We walked in, started talking to Luigi and, by the end of the meal, we had agreed to buy the restaurant."
Ficarra, a Sicilian-leaning Italian restaurant, has replaced Luigi Q in Hicksville. Credit: Newsday/Erica Marcus
The Mattones barely touched the interior as the dining room and lounge had been completely reconfigured in 2020, when Luigi Q reopened after a fire shuttered the restaurant for three years. They also brought back one of Quarta’s former chefs, Jorge Gonzalez, whose menu retains old favorites such as paccheri Luciana (with octopus and tomatoes), lobster ravioli and a 14-ounce pork chop with cherry peppers. Gonzalez makes a mean linguine with clams (classic, but with a verdant glug of basil oil) and gnocchi sauced with short ribs, shiitake mushrooms and truffle oil.
You’ll also find fried calamari, shrimp and artichokes with cherry-pepper aioli; burrata on a salad of tomato, onions and cucumber; beet salad with quinoa, goat cheese, candied walnuts and avocado; Cornish hen pan seared "under a brick"; herb-crusted rack of New Zealand lamb; pan-seared diver scallops with vegetable-truffle risotto. Most starters are between $18 and $22, pastas between $28 and $32. Mains range from $34 (Cornish hen, chicken scarpariello) to $42 (pork chop), $72 (veal chop, strip steak, filet mignon) to $175 (42-ounce prime porterhouse for two).
Since it opened in 2000, Luigi Q was a perennial presence on Newsday's list of top Italian restaurants. Quarta employed a number of talented chefs including Pastor Alfaro, who left to open Bivio in Huntington, and Rico Bermeo, who owns Sophia in Amityville. But the food never perceptibly changed because Quarta exercised ultimate control of the kitchen. Having grown up on the Adriatic coast near Bari, he was mad for seafood, bringing in fresh swordfish, sea urchin, bianchetti (whitebait), scungilli (conch) and more whenever he could.
Owner Luigi Quarta gives his restaurant, Luigi Q in Hicksville, its distinctive personality. Credit: Bruce Gilbert
His regular diners, in fact, rarely looked at the menu, relying instead on daily specials that tended to fall into two general categories: fancy and homey. Among the fancy: escargot with Gorgonzola polenta and truffle oil, Scottish salmon wrought into a rose around a lump of Alaskan crab drizzled with pink "Marie Rose" sauce. More often than not, the homey specials recalled Quarta's own childhood in Italy and tended to revolve around game and organ meats: roasted goat, rabbit cacciatore, wild boar rib chops, venison meatballs, Roman-style tripe, Piedmont-style braised kidneys.
With his pressed Oxford shirts and Scottish-tinged Italian-accented English, Quarta also exercised ultimate control of the dining room, famously barring children and anyone wearing shorts or sweatpants. Those policies are no longer in effect at Ficarra.
Ficarra, 400 S. Oyster Bay Rd., Hicksville, 516-932-7450, ficarraristorante.com. Open daily from noon to 9 p.m.
