Chef Tom Schaudel adds Jewel in Melville

Already Long Island's corporate center, Melville is quickly becoming the Island's upscale restaurant center as well, for the business community anyway.

A new upscale restaurant, owned by well-known Long Island chef and restaurateur Tom Schaudel will open about Nov. 16 in the new Rubie Corporate Plaza on the south side of the Long Island Expressway at Route 110.

Named Jewel by Tom Schaudel, it will join two upscale stalwarts, Blackstone Steakhouse on Pinelawn Road and Four Food Studio and Cocktail Salon on Broadhollow Road, both popular with the Melville corporate crowd.

"It will be a big bustling place," said Schaudel, who owns four other restaurants on the Island, including CoolFish in Syosset. "It's going to be brassy in style. They [Rubie] gave us a grand stage."

Jewel will seat 230, with several private rooms, each seating 45 people. There will be a wine and Cognac room that holds 18, along with other private spaces, outdoor patios and gardens.

The menu is contemporary American, Schaudel said, with a price range for entrees of $20 to $35. There also will be a comprehensive list of wines from Long Island vineyards.

Instead of bringing competition to the area, Schaudel said his restaurant will bring more customers for all restaurants. "I don't see this as a zero-sum game," he said. "If people like you, then you get into a rotation," with patrons trying one or another place at different times.

Emir Radoncic, Blackstone's general manager, said time will tell as to whether competition stiffens. "It depends on the concept they're [Jewel] going to be," Radoncic said. "Once they're open we will be able to gauge it all a little more."

But the new restaurant coming in is further evidence of one thing: "Route 110 has become the corporate/dining mecca of Long Island," said Jay Grossman, owner of Four. "This just enhances what we have to offer."

The restaurant business is fiercely competitive, said Steve Haweeli, president of East Hampton-based WordHampton, a public relations firm that specializes in eateries. But, Haweeli noted, downtown Huntington and East Hampton village are chockablock with good restaurants, and they all usually survive.

Sometimes, Haweeli said, "the more the merrier."