Long Island Restaurants

Franina

For many years, you had to search for Franina, even though it's on a main road. The modest storefront could be identified by a canopy. The addition of Doric columns and the balustrade now have taken care of that.

McMansioned outside, Franina also is a lot fancier indoors, with flowing fabric and polite artwork. But, image aside, what counts today is what mattered before. The food is very good, and a lot of first-class wine flows.

Smooth and attentive service, even when there's a party under way in an adjoining dining room, completes the picture.

Start with an opulent seafood salad, with tender lobster meat, shrimp, scallops and squid, well dressed in a lemony vinaigrette. Or warm up with baked bluepoint oysters, capped with bread crumbs and accented with a light, herbaceous garlic sauce.

Grilled octopus with white beans, finished with olive oil and oregano; and a plump crab cake, paired with a warmed salad of shaved fennel, add to the fine openers. The salad of red and golden beets, with good greens and toasted goat cheese, adds a comparatively contemporary element.

Pastas are available in appetizer portions. The best: pappardelle Bolognese, in a delectable, almost sweet, meat sauce. Linguinette with dime-size imported clams almost rivals it, expertly done in white sauce.

There's less to the cavatelli caponata, with that warm Sicilian relish surprisingly bland. And goat-cheese ravioli in a walnut-Parmesan sauce arrives quietly, more underseasoned than subtle.

Gummy gnocchi flank an otherwise excellent braised beef braciola, a textbook production spiked with pine nuts. A juicy little hen with shiitake mushrooms benefits from the company of lemon and rosemary.

Flavorful, moist lobster fra diavolo packs the heat, as requested. It's easily recommended. Lobster pescatore takes a milder route, surrounded by shellfish, atop linguine.

Whole, delicate branzino, or sea bass, slightly smoky and sweet, brushed with olive oil and herbs; and whole orata, the flaky, white sea bream, dabbed with olive oil and completed with shavings of garlic, are the house's tastiest swimmers. A heartier choice: striped bass with olives, peppers, onions and potatoes.

Franina's desserts aren't as consistent. The mascarpone cheesecake veers toward dry; and the "tortino Vesuvio," a souffle-style cake, never erupts. The warm apple tart: toast.

But crepes with fruits are flambeed with aplomb. And zabaglione, whisked into a luscious cloud then set on berries, provides a tableside show -- and an apropos finale.

Reviewed by Peter M. Gianotti, 11/4/07.

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