Long Island Restaurants

105 Harbor

The history of 105 Harbor goes back to the 17th century. The food reaches the 21st.

Over the years, this address has housed a hotel and restaurants from The Old Whaler to The Inn on the Harbor to the first incarnation of 105 Harbor.

In its latest life, the place stays warm and welcoming. And the stylish New American cuisine has taken on traditional French and nouveau Asian accents. The results usually are very good.

It's all served in a handsomely appointed place, decorated with sailing images and other polite artwork. The two-story restaurant offers a fine waterview from the upstairs dining room and a big fireplace on the first floor. There's a popular lounge, too, for music and drinks. At last count, 105 Harbor had 16 variations on the martini.

Cocktails completed, move on to chef Noah Jacques' full-flavored rock lobster bisque; or the bracing onion soup, which should erase any fears of winter.

Meaty, generous jumbo lump crab cakes arrive flanked by black bean salsa and avocado remoulade for a satisfying shift in direction. The savory lobster wraps are a do-it-yourself number, with Napa cabbage leaves ready to be filled with sweet chile-seasoned shellfish, cashews and chive sauce.

A balanced sweet chile-and-wasabi dressing juices up the salad of tatsoi greens, julienned carrots and crisp, fried calamari. Grilled Bartlett pears anchor a refreshing salad of frisee, arugula, toasted pecans and goat cheese.

These all are preferable to the overdone stuffed mushrooms; pasty pumpkin ravioli; and the roasted tomato-and-basil strigolini, a surprisingly bland and gluey pasta.

The kitchen gets going again with a juicy, zesty steak au poivre and the grilled pork tenderloin, served with gnocchi, a poached-pear chutney and Madeira-infused cream sauce.

Sesame-crusted tuna, cubed and set on rice cakes and watercress slaw, takes the now-too-familiar dish and gives it some verve. Miso-crusted cod, similarly becoming a menu staple on Long Island, also is recommended, accompanied by fried leeks and sauteed bok choy in a black bean-and-chile sauce. The obligatory main course of salmon is more diverting than usual, grilled and served with a trio of salsas, glistening from citrus-cilantro butter.

But duck scaloppine tastes gamey under the singed breading, and the butternut ravioli turns tough in texture and ultrasweet from an orange-and-cashew reduction.

Instead, try the coq au vin, which isn't very winey but is tender and complemented by garlic-mashed potatoes and crisp onions. An alternative is the moist chicken dubbed Provençal, a pan-seared breast with grilled asparagus that doesn't so much evoke the south of France as the north of Long Island.

A seven-layer carrot cake towers over the desserts. The fine apple sorbet also is good company.

And, keeping with the calendar, 105 Harbor itself has a little holiday glow.

Reviewed by Peter M. Gianotti, 12/4/07.

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