Long Island Wave came to dinner

Long Island Wave published a piece about us at the end of August, under a headline more generous than anything we would write about ourselves: the best French restaurant on Long Island, and worth the drive to Oyster Bay. Nobody here asked for it. So, thank you, and here is what is in it.

What they built the case on

The part we liked was that they refused to leave it at an adjective. Every claim in the piece is one you can check against the carte before you book.

• The cellar. They counted all five of the 1855 Bordeaux First Growths on our list, along with two bottlings from Domaine de la Romanée Conti, and noted there are steakhouses in Manhattan with a shallower Bordeaux page.
• The kitchen. Escargots, soupe à l’oignon, frisée aux lardons, moules four ways, duck magret, lobster thermidor, the plateau and the three tartares. Their argument was that we run the canon end to end rather than scattering French words over an American menu.
• The service. The tartare mixed beside you off the cart, desserts finished at the table. They called it “the detail most places on the Island have quietly given up.”
• The beef. USDA Prime, aged a few doors down the street at The Bay Butcher, which is family.
• The room. Small, marble-topped and candlelit. A village storefront rather than a banquet hall.

They also made a point about us that we had never thought to make ourselves. The Oyster Bay branch of the Long Island Rail Road ends a short walk from South Street, which, given the wine list, is not a small thing.

If the piece sent you here

Dinner only, and closed Monday. Reserve a table, and if it was the cellar that caught your eye, say so when you book so the right person is looking after you. The list runs to about two hundred bottles and somebody on the floor is always waiting for a reason to open it.

Read the whole thing on Long Island Wave. It is far longer than this and it goes through the carte section by section.