EAT Gastropub takes over the Oceanside location that formerly was...

EAT Gastropub takes over the Oceanside location that formerly was Union Park Cafe, Aug. 21, 2014. Credit: Newsday / Erica Marcus

“EAT safe and use condiments!” is the motto of EAT Gastropub, which opened  this week in Oceanside.

Gastronomic safety is supposedly conferred by the restaurant’s careful sourcing of ingredients — house-ground, grass-fed Piedmontese beef in the burgers; greens and herbs grown in the on-premises greenhouse. As for condiments, the menu makes lavish use of them: sun-dried tomato aioli on the panko-eggplant sandwich ($13); both tomato jam and bacon jam on the EAT burger ($14); maple aioli on the sweet-potato fries ($7). 

Chef John Maher, formerly of Picholine and Le Cirque in Manhattan and Sole in Oceanside, has designed an imaginative, casual menu filled with American comfort classics (chicken potpie, $16; meatloaf “TV dinner,” $18) and exuberant global mash-ups like poutine with duck-fat fries, cheese curds and duck demi-glace ($11) and duck tacos with hoisin, pickled onions and pineapple ($18). Salads are all less than $15; most other sandwiches, burgers and entrees are well under $20. 

EAT comprises a bar (with 24 beers on tap); a bright, retro-industrial-hip dining room; a covered patio; a side deck (with a view of the greenhouse), and a smaller back deck. The space, next door to Persil, was most recently Union Park Café, but for decades it was Johnny Russell’s, which, according to partner George Conforti, received New York State’s third post-Prohibition liquor license. (The first two went to McSorley’s and Pete’s Tavern in Manhattan.)

EAT Gastropub is at 2823 Long Beach Rd., Oceanside, 516-766-9547.

 
Newsday LogoSUBSCRIBEUnlimited Digital AccessOnly 25¢for 5 months
ACT NOWSALE ENDS SOON | CANCEL ANYTIME