This year, Long Island’s Winter Restaurant Week will begin on Sunday, January 21 and run until the following Sunday, January 28. As part of this tri-annual celebration of food, participating restaurants will offer three-course, prix fixe meals for $28.95 each evening. This is the second time a winter Long Island Restaurant Week has been held, with the first occurring last January.
Restaurants across the entire island will take part, serving unique dishes and providing a choice from at least three appetizers, three entrees, and three desserts – as stipulated by Long Island Restaurant & Hospitality Group, the organization responsible for this event. On the East End, there are fifteen restaurants taking part: Southampton’s Le Charlot; Lulu Kitchen & Bar and Page at 63 Main in Sag Harbor; Cowfish, Centro Trattoria & Bar, and Rumba in Hampton Bays; Cooperage Inn in Baiting Hollow; Stone Creek Inn in East Quogue; The Halyard in Greenport; aMano Restaurant in Mattituck; Legends in New Suffolk; Bistro 72 and Perabell Food Bar in Riverhead; Caci North Fork in Southold; and La Plage Restaurant in Wading River.
Including Suffolk and Nassau counties, over 100 restaurants will participate this winter season, according to Steve Haweeli, President of Long Island Restaurant & Hospitality Group. “With more than 2.8 million residents and more than 1,000 restaurants with varied cuisines, concepts and price points, it’s a fantastic way to explore the culinary landscape that Long Island has to offer,” said Haweeli.
Restaurant Week provides an opportunity for restaurants and people on the island to connect; the former is able to reach new customers and the latter can try cuisines and sample the offerings of restaurants they typically would not try.
“We had a very successful event for the fall Restaurant Week, which was our first Restaurant Week since we opened,” shared Steven Jauffrineau, the Managing Director at Lulu Kitchen & Bar. “We are excited to participate in the winter version this month hoping to see more members of the local community who may have missed the fall promotion.”
Long Island Restaurant Week was first launched in 2006 as an annual event held in November. The first spring Restaurant Week was launched in April 2011, and since then, LIWR has been held biannually until January 2017, when the winter edition was added. According to LIWR’s official site, the idea for an island-wide restaurant week was inspired by the Hamptons’ and New York’s Restaurant Weeks.
In its first year, the event garnered almost $3 million in revenue and an estimated $150,753 in tax dollars. Some participants experienced a 40 to 200 percent increase in midweek numbers and sales. Due to this success and boom in business, some restaurants extend the prix fixe promotion past the eight day event.
The special, prix-fixe deal will be offered by participants every evening through close, with the exception of Saturday evenings, in which the restaurant might only provide the offer until 7 p.m.
For a complete list of participating restaurants, please visit www.longislandrestaurantweek.com.