Small-plates restaurant Swallow to close in Huntington
The shrimp po' boy is a specialty at Swallow restaurant in Huntington. Credit: Newsday/Tadej Znidarcic
Swallow, the popular small-plates restaurant that has been a mainstay of Huntington Village dining since 2010, will close later this year. The restaurant announced that it is “passing the torch to our friends and neighbors at The Paramount.”
That torch won’t have very far to travel: The theater and the restaurant share the same building, opened within a few months of each other, and are both most valuable players on Huntington’s winning nightlife team.
The Paramount has not announced its plans for the Swallow space.
Co-owner James Tchinnis said that the decision to close was bittersweet. "It was always my dream to open a restaurant in Huntington.” He recalled that when he had his first restaurant, Bayview (later Bistro 44) in Northport, “Huntington was the big time.” Tchinnis said he won’t close until March or April.
The first incarnation of Swallow was hardly larger than the bar. In 2014 it expanded into the adjacent storefront and doubled down on the small-plates menu. In his 2½-star review, Newsday’s Peter Gianotti wrote, “More than doubled in size . . . with ambitions multiplied many times over, it's one of the sharpest restaurants in downtown Huntington.”
The year before the expansion, Tchinnis and his partner Mike Walrath opened a Montauk satellite called Swallow East. “Out there we make in three or four months about what we make in Huntington all year,” Tchinnis said. “Now, we’ll really be able to focus on Montauk, expand our hours and what we do. I’ll be able to spend the whole summer out there instead of going back and forth — and my kids can learn to surf.”
Tchinnis is also a partner in Organic Krush, the juice-bar-healthy-cafe in Woodbury.
Swallow is at 366 New York Ave., Huntington, 631-547-5388, swallowrestaurant.com.
