A certain kind of restaurant earns its place not through novelty or trend‑chasing, but through the slow, steady accumulation of excellence — a place where the cuisine, the architecture, and the setting work in concert to create something greater than the sum of their parts. Prime: An American Kitchen & Bar on Huntington Harbor is that kind of establishment. Perched at the edge of Long Island’s Gold Coast, where the shimmer of the harbor writes its own nightly editorial, Prime has spent nearly two decades defining what it means to dine with intention on the North Shore. Running The Heritage Diner for 25 years has taught me that longevity in this industry is never accidental — it is earned, detail by deliberate detail. When I look at Prime, I recognize the same philosophy at work.
The Bohlsen Legacy: A Family That Built Long Island’s Table
Prime is the flagship of the Bohlsen Restaurant Group (BRG), a family operation with roots that run as deep as any on Long Island. Brothers Michael and Kurt Bohlsen are third-generation restaurateurs who inherited both the craft and the conviction of their predecessors. Their father began with a single Arby’s franchise in Deer Park, New York, and over 13 years built that single location into 55 franchises, eventually rising to president of the entire Arby’s franchise association — a story of compounding mastery that the Bohlsen name carries forward to this day (NY Restaurant Insider, 2007). When the family pivoted to fine dining, the same discipline that built a franchise empire was redirected toward building something more intimate, more permanent: a dining culture that Long Island could call its own.
Michael Bohlsen opened Prime in Huntington in 2006, the product of two years of planning and an architectural vision as ambitious as the cuisine. The design brief was precise and poetic: a classic boathouse along the Charles River, translated into a multi-level waterfront destination on Huntington Harbor (Restaurant Prime, 2024). A custom glass wall bisects the main dining room, offering an unobstructed visual conversation with the harbor’s surface. The wood-paneled Lounge — fireplace burning, leather couches inviting — channels a warmth that is distinctly nautical, distinctly North Shore. The Fantail, jutting outward like a boat’s bow, anchors a fire pit that glows through Long Island winters. The Wave Bar commands water views that on a clear evening rival anything in a far more celebrated coastal city.
Modern American Cuisine: The Art of Refinement Without Erasure
Michael Bohlsen articulated his culinary philosophy with a clarity that I have always respected: “We tried to take old ideas and put a new twist on them. American cuisine really encompasses every cuisine; sushi is American, everything is American, and we’ve put our own stamp on it” (NY Restaurant Insider, 2007). This is not mere marketing language — it is a philosophy of culinary stewardship. The menu at Prime does not deconstruct its traditions into abstraction. It refines them.
The raw bar anchors the experience in something primal — the cold, briny clarity of oysters and shellfish sourced with care. Mizu sushi — Prime’s house sushi program — occupies its own dedicated space on the menu, a testament to BRG’s conviction that sophisticated dining on Long Island need not be confined to a single culinary tradition. The steaks are USDA-certified Prime grade, dry-aged for 21 days, a process that concentrates flavor through controlled enzymatic transformation — the culinary equivalent of what I watch happen in my Marcellino workshop when a vegetable-tanned hide begins to develop its first true patina. Time, discipline, and controlled conditions yielding a product that no shortcut can replicate.
The wine program — over 1,000 labels — is one of the most extensive on Long Island, a cellar that rewards curiosity and rewards loyalty in equal measure (Restaurant Prime, 2024). Sunday Brunch, available weekly from 11:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., extends the Prime experience into the weekend’s most relaxed hours, Jazz accompanying plates and conversation with equal grace.
The Architecture of Atmosphere: Why This Space Works in All Seasons
Most waterfront restaurants on Long Island operate under a silent seasonal contract: magnificent from May through September, forgettable in January. Michael Bohlsen rejected that contract outright. When designing Prime, he insisted on building a restaurant capable of standing on its cuisine and atmosphere alone — independent of the harbor view — so that guests would return in January with the same enthusiasm they brought in July (NY Restaurant Insider, 2007). That long-horizon thinking is the mark of a builder rather than a speculator, and it is precisely what has allowed Prime to outlast competitors who mistook a good waterfront location for a durable business.
The covered and seasonally enclosed Porch bridges the gap between the indoor elegance of the dining room and the open-air freedom of the Dockside, ensuring that the harbor is always accessible — on Long Island’s temperate evenings and its bracing winter afternoons alike. The result is a restaurant that functions as what the urbanist Ray Oldenburg would call a true “third place” — not home, not work, but the space where identity and community converge over good food and honest conversation.
The Culinary Team: Executive Talent at the Pass
From its earliest days, Prime attracted serious culinary talent. Executive Chef James McDevitt, who joined BRG in August 2013, brought a resume that few Long Island kitchens could match: named “Best New Chef” by Food & Wine magazine in 1999, recognized as a “Rising Star” by the James Beard Foundation in 2001, and a celebrity judge on Bravo TV’s Top Chef (Bohlsen Restaurant Group, 2024). The son of an Irish-American military father and a Japanese mother, McDevitt grew up moving across the globe, absorbing culinary influences that have since shaped Prime’s signature fusion of American steakhouse rigor and Asian-inflected precision.
That depth of talent at the creative level is reflected in the consistency that guests — now numbering in the thousands of OpenTable reviews, with a sustained 4.7-star rating — have come to depend on (OpenTable, 2025). Reviewers consistently single out the professionalism of the service, the quality of the dry-aged steaks, and the experience of dining waterside on Prime’s seasonal prix-fixe evenings and New Year’s celebrations.
Community, Events & Private Dining: Huntington’s Premier Gathering Place
Prime and the Bohlsen Restaurant Group have long understood that a restaurant of this caliber carries community obligations as well as culinary ones. BRG operates within the broader Huntington ecosystem with active support for local causes, and Prime itself functions as the preferred venue for Huntington’s most significant private celebrations — from milestone anniversaries and rehearsal dinners to corporate galas and charity fundraisers.
The Harbor Club at Prime, situated adjacent to the main restaurant on Huntington Harbor, extends BRG’s event capabilities into a world-class private venue with floor-to-ceiling windows, open-air balconies, and views of Gold Coast mansions and luxury yachts that make a persuasive case for celebrating life’s most important occasions right here, on the North Shore, rather than the often impersonal event spaces of Manhattan (Harbor Club at Prime, 2024). The $29 Power Lunch program — available Monday through Friday — makes Prime accessible for the working professional seeking a meal that rises above the transactional, bringing the same culinary standard down to a midday price point without compromise.
The Expansion: Stamford and the Proof of a Replicable Standard
In 2016, a full decade after the Huntington flagship opened, BRG launched a second Prime location in Stamford, Connecticut — a deliberate, disciplined expansion timed only when the original had matured into an irreplaceable institution (Restaurant Prime, 2024). The Stamford location mirrors the Huntington design: floor-to-ceiling tempered glass walls with full water views, an illuminated glass wine room visible from both inside and outside the building with separate temperature zones for red and white, and outdoor cabana dining in warmer months. A decade between locations is not indecision — it is the same philosophy that governs the 100-year leather goods I build at Marcellino NY. You do not expand until the original is beyond reproach.
Dining at Prime: What to Expect
Prime is a destination in the truest sense — a restaurant worth building an evening, and occasionally a full weekend, around. Reservations are strongly suggested, and the restaurant is not suitable for children under six years of age, a policy that preserves the atmosphere of adult sophistication that defines the experience. The seasonal menu rotates with fresh catches and produce-driven preparations, so returning guests are consistently rewarded with something new alongside the permanent fixtures that have earned their place.
For the North Shore resident or visitor willing to trade the formulaic for the genuine, Prime represents what Long Island fine dining is capable of — not an imitation of Manhattan’s ambitions, but a fully realized expression of Gold Coast identity, built on a waterfront that has been the address of aspiration for over a century.
Address: 117 North New York Avenue, Huntington, NY 11743 Phone: (631) 385-1515 Website: restaurantprime.com Email: info@brgroup.biz Hours: Monday–Thursday 11:30 a.m.–10:00 p.m. | Friday & Saturday 11:30 a.m.–11:00 p.m. | Sunday 11:30 a.m.–9:00 p.m. Sunday Jazz Brunch: 11:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m. Online Ordering / Delivery: Available via ChowNow OpenTable Reservations: Book Here Gift Cards: Available through the restaurant website
