Long Island Restaurants

Mill Pond House

Chef Chris Neary of Mill Pond House, which recently replaced the Mill Pond Inn, a Route 25A fixture. The newly renovated restaurant offers a steak and seafood menu. (Newsday Photo/Mia Aigotti)

The Inn is out and the House is open.

Mill Pond House brings something rare to this curve of Route 25A: very good food. The restaurant replaces the Mill Pond Inn, which for years proved that a desert could exist waterside.

Handsomely renovated and deftly run, the new steak-and-seafood house has a pedigree that goes back to Piccolo in Huntington and James Dean, formerly Justin's, in Hicksville. The experience shows.

The interior has been sponged a mellow, gold hue, appointed with some colorful artwork, traditional furnishings and fresh flowers. Dining rooms on the two floors, bright downstairs and cozier up, afford tables with views of sunset on the water. Mill Pond House is pretty in an old-fashioned way.

From the kitchen come few surprises, which in some ways heightens the house's appeal. The steaks are thick, the seafood is fresh, the audience spared nouvelle experiments gone awry.

The lump crabmeat cocktail, in a broad V-shaped cup more suitable for ice cream, is dewy and refreshing. Likewise, a chilled lobster production with caramelized onions that hint of honey.

Mussels steamed in white wine and garlic sauce, however, are plump and tasty. The coconut shrimp, crisp and sweet as a dessert, glide along a piña colada sauce. Purists should stick to the dependable shrimp cocktail. Oysters and littleneck clams on the half-shell join shrimp, crabmeat and lobster in the house's elevated plateau.

Lobster ravioli benefit from a savory pink sauce. But linguine with white clam sauce is short on seasoning and blandly routine. Clams casino are undone by their mantles of charred bacon. Fragrant, sauteed wild mushrooms are only gently earthy but do have some variety and an herbaceous accent.

An excellent special: Parmesan-crusted swordfish, finished with lemon and white wine. The snowy, moist cut gets its competition from pan-seared salmon in mustard sauce and yellowfin tuna in a ginger-soy sauce.

Lobsters are available steamed, broiled or stuffed. The stuffing, however, seems like a dry crab cake spread across the split shellfish. The lobster itself is well prepared.

Mill Pond House's big steak is a juicy porterhouse for two. The velvety filet mignon also makes the choice easy, along with the sirloin, grilled or au poivre; and the rib eye, grilled or spiked with Cajun spices. The marinated hanger steak, very tender and a bit sweet, sports onions and peppers alongside.

The peppers that count, however, are the hot ones that spark the flavorful, double-cut pork chop. Entwined among them are mushrooms and onions, but it's those peppers that jump-start this lively, satisfying entree.

A la carte side dishes include respectable creamed spinach and sauteed spinach; good mashed potatoes, sweet potato fries and French fries, and better hash browns; and onions, fried or sauteed. You can have those wild mushrooms with your main course, too.

For dessert, try the cheesecake with a gingersnap crust, bakery-quality chocolate layer cake or the dark-and-white chocolate tart, which suggests a two-tone brownie. The flip-top crème brûlée and al dente rice pudding do need some fine-tuning.

The best of all the finales is the crumbly cranberry-apple crisp. It's a warm mouthful followed by a tingle of vanilla ice cream: homey, soothing, stylish in its own way -- and befitting Mill Pond House.

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