Long Island Restaurants

Emilio's

At Emilio's in Commack, you'll probably have to wait for a table and strain your voice to be heard above the din. A recent renovation and expansion has done little to diminish those inconveniences and discomfort. But people knowingly opt to suffer for chef-owner Emilio Branchinelli's superior pizza and pasta dishes.

His marinara pie (think Sicilian without the mozzarella) rules. It's made with superb canned San Marzano tomatoes, fresh basil and garlic, and a dusting of Parmesan. The crunchy crust is good enough to eat alone. Emilio's "grandma" pie, a square pan pizza with a thinner crust, involves the same brand of tomatoes, fresh basil and mozzarella. It's perfection. Heartier eaters will enjoy the "grandpa" Sicilian pie, with red onions, marinara sauce and a bread-crumb topping.

One night, a group of us had, as an appetizer, a double-crusted, Chicago-style pan pizzotte (small pizza) special, made with sausage, pepperoni, meatballs, peppers, onion, ham, olives, tomato sauce and mozzarella. It was sensational.

Branchinelli's new menu features some family-style appetizer platters. Share the "three musketeer" salad sampler, consisting of a fine Caesar salad, a colorful "insalate Treviso" (a toss of radicchio, napa cabbage, goat cheese and grilled chicken with a lemon vinaigrette) and the "Monet," a lively chopped salad with crumbled Gorgonzola and a mild honey vinaigrette. The "fiasco" platter, anything but a fiasco, featured fried calamari arrabbiata (the spicy sauce made the squid coating soggy, but it was good, nonetheless), mussels in a red bacon and onion sauce, and scungilli fra diavolo.

Many pastas -- even the tubular ones, such as rigatoni -- are freshly made, although dried pasta is available, too. A special of "homemade" rigatoni alla mama, with tomato sauce, meatballs and ricotta proved an old-fashioned delight. Rigatoni "fanatico," with sausage, mushrooms, onions, mozzarella and basil in a cream- enhanced marinara sauce was terrific, as was rigatoni Palermo, with sausage, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes in a light tomato-wine sauce.

The classic veal Parmigiano, served with marvelous house-made papardelle marinara, couldn't have been more tender or flavorsome. One evening, we enjoyed a generous grilled double breast of chicken "rustico" with broccoli rabe, portobello mushrooms and roasted peppers. Another time, though, a special of grilled chicken with mozzarella, tomatoes and basil featured two dry paillards in a vinegary syrup with hard, pale tomatoes and flabby sliced mozzarella. A disastrous lapse.

But shrimp scampi over linguine was super, starring huge crustaceans in a lemony, garlicky sauce. Walnut and corn-encrusted Chilean sea bass translated into crisp slabs of fried fish with baby spinach, roasted garlic mashed potatoes and roasted pepper coulis. Good? Yes. But not as gratifying as a simple bowl of spaghetti and meatballs.

Desserts, like the flourless chocolate cake and the tiramisu, are OK but not the restaurant's forte.

Peerless pizza and pasta are what it's all about.

Reviewed by Joan Reminick, 11/28/03.

Ranked as the ninth-best pizza on Long Island by our readers

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