The Heritage Diner Blog • Food & Culture
Thirty miles of coastline. Seven villages. One of the most underappreciated culinary corridors in the Northeast. A driving guide along Route 25A for the discerning palate.
By The Heritage Diner Editorial | Published February 19, 2026 | heritagediner.com/blog
There is an artery on Long Island that most New Yorkers have never properly driven. Route 25A — the old King’s Highway, the road George Washington’s Culper spies once used to shuttle intelligence through enemy lines — threads its way along the North Shore from Cold Spring Harbor to Port Jefferson like a vein of copper running through marble. It connects harbor villages, university towns, and working waterfronts. It passes nineteenth-century whaling ports and twenty-first-century omakase bars. And if you know where to stop, it offers one of the most rewarding single-day food experiences within striking distance of Manhattan.
What follows is not an algorithm-generated listicle. This is a curated, opinionated, road-tested driving guide assembled from a quarter century of feeding the North Shore at The Heritage Diner in Mount Sinai — a position that affords a certain clarity about what endures and what merely trends. The restaurants selected here have earned their place through the same qualities that define any lasting enterprise: consistency, character, and an unshakable relationship with the communities they serve. Think of it as a food trail in the tradition of the Long Island Seafood Cuisine Trail recently launched by Governor Hochul’s Blue Food Transformation Initiative (NYS Agriculture & Markets, 2025), but oriented toward the full breadth of the North Shore’s culinary identity rather than a single protein.
The route covers approximately thirty miles of 25A and its immediate tributaries, from the western gateway at Cold Spring Harbor to the ferry village of Port Jefferson. Budget a full day. Bring an appetite calibrated to excess. Leave the Long Island Expressway in your rearview mirror where it belongs.
Stop One: Cold Spring Harbor — Where the Trail Begins
Cold Spring Harbor ranked second in a 2023 Niche survey of the best places to live in Suffolk County, and the commercial strip along 25A radiates that quiet affluence — bookshops, galleries, and a handful of restaurants that have learned to serve a clientele accustomed to dining well in the city (Greater Long Island, 2025). The population barely clears three thousand. The harbor itself is a postcard. And the dining, while limited in quantity, punches far above its weight.
Grasso’s
134 Main Street, Cold Spring Harbor • Italian / New American • $$$ • Est. 28+ years
Under owner Gail Grasso and Executive Chef Tony Canales, Grasso’s has become what Newsday food critic Peter Gianotti once described as combining country charms with city style. Live jazz Tuesday through Sunday. The branzini — Mediterranean sea bass, roasted whole, filleted tableside — is the move. The dining porch overlooking the village is essential in warm months. This is Cold Spring Harbor’s living room, and it has been for nearly three decades.
Harbor Mist
Waterfront, Cold Spring Harbor • Continental / Latin-Influenced • $$$ • Est. 10+ years
Nestled directly on the waterline, Harbor Mist serves continental cuisine with Latin and Italian inflections — a combination that shouldn’t work as well as it does. The setting is the real draw: this is among the few restaurants on the North Shore where you can dine with the harbor literally at your feet. Reserve for sunset. The ceviche and the seafood risotto justify the trip alone.
Between these two anchors, the village strip offers quick stops for coffee and baked goods. The Gourmet Whaler, a deli and café directly on 25A, has long been a favored pit stop for motorcyclists and day-trippers who know to order the lobster roll.
Stop Two: Huntington Village — The North Shore’s Restaurant Capital
If Cold Spring Harbor is a sonnet, Huntington Village is a symphony. With more than seventy restaurants and bars, Huntington is the most restaurant-dense downtown on Long Island — a fact that rewards spontaneity over rigid planning (Greater Long Island, 2025). The advice from locals who know this strip cold: don’t make reservations. Stroll the sidewalks. Read the menus posted outside. Let the evening decide.
Bistro Cassis
Huntington Village • French Bistro • $$$
Ornate tin ceilings, carved cherry pilasters, soaring marble pillars, and oversized antique mirrors that transport you to the Parisian Left Bank. The Croque Madame at lunch is a quiet masterpiece. The moules frites come in several preparations. The free homemade pâté served at the start of every meal is the kind of gesture that separates restaurants from dining experiences. This is where you come when you need to remember that Long Island possesses sophistication that owes nothing to the Hamptons.
Restaurant Joanina
35A Gerard Street, Huntington • Rustic Italian • $$$
A wood-burning brick oven anchors the back of a room that could pass for a Tuscan farmhouse. The pizzas are exceptional. The handmade pastas are better. The wine shop next door supplies an extensive list, making this one of the few Italian restaurants on Long Island where the pairing actually elevates the meal. Joanina has expanded to multiple locations, but the Huntington original retains the intimacy that made its reputation.
IMC Restaurant & Bar (Imperial Meat Company)
Huntington Village • Steakhouse / Chic Bistro • $$$$
The most glamorous entry on Huntington’s restaurant row. IMC stakes its claim on starting with top-of-the-line provisions — a philosophy any craftsman can respect. The Porterhouse for two is a destination cut. The Brussels sprouts and mushroom sides are not afterthoughts but statements of intent. When Paola and I are scouting properties along the North Shore for our 2026 boutique venture, this is where we close the evening.
Also essential in Huntington: The Shed, a scratch-made comfort food destination that has expanded across Long Island and now reaches Mohegan Sun; Besito, for elevated Tex-Mex and tableside guacamole; and Prime, an American kitchen perched on the harbor with one of the largest outdoor dining areas in town. Jonathan’s Ristorante, an elegant mainstay in the heart of the Village, has earned a consistency that rivals fine dining establishments twice its price point.
“Downtown Huntington is a restaurant mecca that’s always felt more like the downtown of a medium-sized city.” — Greater Long Island Travel Guide, 2025
Stop Three: Northport Village — The Theater Town That Eats Like a City
The cultural transformation of Northport Village is one of the North Shore’s most compelling stories. In 2006, Kevin and Patti O’Neill purchased a shuttered movie theater on Main Street and transformed it into the John W. Engeman Theater, casting actors from the Broadway talent pool. The Northport Hotel followed in 2023, directly across the street. And with lodging and live performance came the gravitational pull that every restaurateur understands: a captive, well-heeled audience that needs to eat before the curtain and drink after it (FindMyFood, 2025).
Maroni Cuisine
Northport Village • Italian Tasting Menu • $$$$
The restaurant that put Northport on the culinary map. Michael Maroni’s concept is deceptively simple: a fixed multi-course Italian meal anchored by his grandmother’s century-old meatball recipe, served in signature red crocks. Opened in 2001, Maroni Cuisine has now expanded to a Southold location, but the Northport waterfront original — intimate, personal, operating more like a dinner party than a restaurant — remains the standard. The crème brûlée is spoken of with reverence normally reserved for religious texts.
Skippers
Main Street, Northport • Coastal American • $$$ • Est. 40+ years
Forty years on Northport Harbor. Executive Chef Joab Masse and Chef de Cuisine Donaldo Pavon bring a chef-driven sensibility to what is fundamentally a waterfront restaurant — a combination that, in lesser hands, typically produces either pretension or mediocrity. The commitment to sustainable, locally sourced ingredients is not marketing copy here; it’s the operating philosophy. The harbor views are the best in Northport dining.
The Northport Hotel Restaurant
Main Street, Northport • New American • $$$
Led by Executive Chef Michael Ross, the hotel’s restaurant has rapidly established itself as a serious dining destination independent of its lodging function. Hand-selected seasonal ingredients, an extensive wine list, and the kind of craft cocktail program that would be at home in Brooklyn. The pre-theater crowd drives early seatings, but the atmosphere settles into something more refined as the evening deepens.
Northport also rewards exploration off the main drag. Del Vino Vineyards has become a destination winery and a closer alternative for city dwellers who can’t justify the drive to the North Fork. Tap & Tapas brings Spanish cuisine to the village with a menu built around Chef Ramón Martínez’s two decades of experience. And the Wine Cellar on Main serves as an ideal intermission between courses elsewhere, with live music Thursday through Sunday and charcuterie boards that draw from Maroni Cuisine and SALTED. On the Harbor.
Stop Four: Stony Brook — The University Town with a Hidden Gem
Stony Brook tends to be underestimated by food-trail planners, which is precisely why it deserves a stop. The Three Village area — Stony Brook, Setauket, and Old Field — carries a historic weight that few Long Island communities can match. This is where the Culper Spy Ring operated. It’s also home to Stony Brook University, which brings a cosmopolitan palate to a village that might otherwise lean exclusively toward comfort food.
Mirabelle Restaurant & Tavern at the Three Village Inn
150 Main Street, Stony Brook • French-American • $$$$ • Historic Setting
Nestled within the historic Three Village Inn, Mirabelle merges French bistro technique with contemporary American ingredients. The duck duo is a signature. The casarecce pasta could anchor a meal on its own. The setting — a colonial-era inn with fireplaces and period décor — gives the meal a gravity that most suburban restaurants struggle to manufacture. Chef Dan brings a discipline to seasonal sourcing that reflects the same principle I apply to the Marcellino workshop: the quality of the raw material is not negotiable.
Bliss
Stony Brook • New American • $$
The premier North Shore gathering place for New American cuisine built on seasonal, locally sourced ingredients. The rib eye is a revelation — cooked with the kind of precision that turns a good steak into a conversation piece. Bliss operates on a principle that aligns with how we run things at The Heritage: simple food, prepared with care, served without pretension. The fact that they source from local purveyors is not an affectation here — it’s how you build flavor that tastes like a place rather than a supply chain.
Stop Five: Mount Sinai — Home Base, Honest Food
I am not going to pretend objectivity about my own hamlet. Mount Sinai sits roughly at the midpoint of this trail, which makes it the natural rest stop — geographically and spiritually. This is where 25A intersects with the North Shore Rail Trail, a ten-mile paved path running east to Wading River that draws hikers, runners, and cyclists year-round. Cedar Beach is five minutes north. The pace slows here. The pretension drops. And the food rewards that honesty.
The Heritage Diner
275 Route 25A, Mount Sinai • American Classic / Greek-Italian Specialties • $$ • Est. 2000
Twenty-five years. Same family. Same commitment. The Heritage Diner has been a cornerstone of this community since we opened our doors at the turn of the millennium — the building itself transported in pieces from Centereach, where it served generations as the Paramount Diner. Our sourdough sandwiches are built on bread we take seriously. The half-pound burgers are hand-formed. The Greek and Italian specialties draw on the traditions that built this family. The Mojito and Martini menu has surprised more than a few guests who expected diner drinks to stop at coffee. We are not trying to be something we’re not. We are trying to be exactly what a neighborhood anchor should be — a place where every seat has a story and every plate carries the weight of a quarter-century promise.
Mount Sinai is also home to Midori Japanese, a solid sushi option directly adjacent to Heritage on 25A, and the recently arrived Taco Island Tex Mex, which has been drawing praise from the broader Huntington-area dining community. This stretch of 25A doesn’t compete with Huntington Village on volume, but it doesn’t need to. It competes on soul.
A food trail is not a race. It is a curing process — like the slow transformation of vegetable-tanned leather or the seasoning of cast iron — where time and patience are the essential ingredients.
Stop Six: Stony Brook to Port Jefferson — The Final Approach
The final leg of the trail carries you east through Setauket and into Port Jefferson, one of the North Shore’s most walkable and photogenic villages. Port Jeff, as locals call it, is a ferry town — the Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Steamboat Company has connected Long Island to Connecticut since 1883 — and that maritime identity permeates everything from the architecture to the menus. Parking is limited. Arrive early. The village rewards those who come on foot.
The Fifth Season
Port Jefferson • New American / Seasonal • $$$
Local farms and local waters provide the vocabulary; Chef provides the grammar. The menu changes with each season, making every visit a different proposition. American micro-brews and wines are selected to pair specifically with each dish. The house-infused artisan cocktails, made with seasonal purées and fresh-squeezed juices, can be enjoyed overlooking Long Island Sound from the seasonal outdoor patio. This is Port Jeff dining at its most thoughtful.
The Black Pearl at Danford’s
25 East Broadway, Port Jefferson • Seafood Chophouse • $$$$ • Waterfront
Inside Danford’s Hotel & Marina, The Black Pearl combines the formality of a high-end steakhouse with the freshness of a harbor-side seafood house. The Scottish salmon and the tenderloin are both exceptional. The harbor views through the dining room windows provide the kind of backdrop that turns a meal into an event. This is where you end the trail if you want the evening to feel earned.
Pasta Pasta
Port Jefferson Village • Italian • $$ • Est. 1991
Since 1991, Pasta Pasta has been Port Jefferson’s Italian anchor — a Tuscan villa-style dining room with light wood accents and romantic curtained booths. The menu extends well beyond its namesake into fresh fish, steak, and wood-fired pizza. The chocolate bag dessert is legendary. Thirty-four years in one location, in a village where restaurants turn over with the seasons, tells you everything about what this kitchen understands about consistency.
PJ Lobster House
Port Jefferson • Seafood / Fish Market • $$ • Casual
Half restaurant, half fish market — the kind of dual operation that guarantees freshness by eliminating the middleman. Oysters on the half shell, lobster rolls, and a full raw bar in a casual waterfront setting. Dogs are welcome on the outside deck. The sushi program, available Wednesday through Sunday, is a recent and worthy addition. After a day on the trail, this is where you sit on the deck, watch the ferry pull in from Connecticut, and let the afternoon resolve itself.
Also worth your time in Port Jeff: Castaways Steak & Seafood, the nautical-themed newcomer whose Chilean sea bass and craft cocktails have generated immediate buzz; The Steam Room, a longtime casual favorite with a terrific view; and C’est Cheese, a specialty shop and café that serves artisanal cheese plates, craft beer, and boutique wine in what may be the most charming twenty-seat room on the North Shore.
The Trail as Philosophy
Route 25A was designated as part of the Washington Spy Trail by New York State, and the North Shore Promotion Alliance maintains it as the Long Island Heritage Trail. Governor Hochul’s administration has invested $5 million into the Blue Food Transformation Initiative, with a North Shore Seafood Cuisine Trail running from Oyster Bay to Greenport currently under development (NYS Governor’s Office, 2025). The infrastructure for culinary tourism on the North Shore is not theoretical — it is being actively built by the state.
But infrastructure alone does not create a food trail. What creates a food trail is the same force that has kept The Heritage Diner open for a quarter century, or that compels me to hand-stitch a Marcellino briefcase with English bridle leather when a machine could do it in a fraction of the time: the stubborn belief that the details matter. That the locally sourced oyster at PJ Lobster House carries a meaning that the imported one cannot. That Grasso’s live jazz is not ambiance but architecture — as essential to the dining experience as the branzini itself. That Maroni’s grandmother’s meatball recipe, passed down through a century, contains something no culinary school can teach.
As Paola and I prepare for our 2026 boutique real estate venture along the North Shore, every property we evaluate is measured in part by its proximity to this kind of authenticity. The National Association of Realtors reports that walkability and access to local dining are among the top five factors influencing home-purchase decisions for buyers under forty-five (NAR, 2024). The North Shore’s culinary density along 25A is not merely a lifestyle amenity — it is an economic engine, a property-value driver, and a hedge against the homogenization that strip-mall development has inflicted on so much of suburban America.
Drive the trail. Stop often. Eat without apology. The North Shore has been feeding people since before this nation existed. The best kitchens along 25A are simply the latest chapter in a story that began with the Unkechaug and Setalcott peoples harvesting shellfish from these same waters — a story that continues every morning at Heritage when we fire the griddle and open the doors.
The Heritage Diner is located at 275 Route 25A, Mount Sinai, NY 11766. Open seven days. For properties along the North Shore, contact Broker Paola at heritagediner.com/properties. For bespoke English bridle leather goods, visit maisonpawli.com.
