Is Long Beach the new Hamptons? Speculation is always awash this time of year, and while the city by the sea may not have the same star power as East End, it's definitely building up its restaurant cred. Take the new d'eCaffe for example, which is filled with fashionable looking students studying on laptops. This impressive Italian bakery is from the award-winning pastry chef Francesco Manfredi, who recently decamped from San Diego back to Long Island to open a shop with his wife, Micah Mea.
Their bright green pistachio-dipped croissants are worth traveling for. But if it's after 5 p.m.
, you'll want to head across the street to LB Bistro for a calvados cocktail with absinthe rinse. Another telling sign of trendiness: The quaint residential neighborhood of Point Lookout down the road just got a Southdown Coffee, and a picturesque one at that. As the sun heats up by the beach, it definitely feels like there's new energy to the place.
So here are six food spots that have opened their doors in the past few months. 150 E. Park Ave.
, Long Beach The best seat at Matt Hisiger's new French bistro is at the bar, or if you're lucky, one of the tables up at the front by the window where you'll find a couple splitting a bottle of red wine. If you can ignore the cars speeding down Park Avenue, it almost feels you're in Paris for a minute. But that may be because the cocktail you chose has absinthe in it.
The chef at LB Social down the street did a fine job converting the former Steven's Pa.
