Restaurants in Levittown

Frank's dinner menu is filled with thick, meaty entrees and beefy appetizers. Load your table early with a starter of double gorgonzola bread ($5.95) and lump crabmeat cocktail bedded on fresh greens ($15.95), and then ready the dinner party for the entrees. Frank's celebrated Romanian skirt steak is marinated in a secret garlicky sauce ($27.95), and the 12-ounce filet mignon is served with your choice of béarnaise, bordelaise, or au poirve sauce ($34.95). Or order a 42-ounce porterhouse for two and watch Frank's expert servers forklift it to the table (au jus and butter, $81.95). Beef disbelievers can order a delectable platter of pan-seared jumbo shrimp (with beurre blanc sauce, $24.95) or devour roasted honey-pecan chicken ($19.95). To top off a family meal or a feast with multiple strangers, order a family-style side such as steak fries or mashed potatoes with sautéed onions (each $7.50).

Save for the sunlight streaming in through the windows, Blue Fish Restaurant and Lounge immerses patrons in a sleek, dimly lit lounge as they wash down the Japanese cuisine with swigs of hot sake. Behind the bar bathed in dim blue light, chefs carefully prepare bites of fresh sashimi and specialty sushi rolls such as the Coco Loco—spicy tuna topped with coconut shrimp and avocado in a piña colada sauce.

Executive chef Pat Ippolito may be a culinary professional, but his mother, Norine, makes the tiramisu at his restaurant. As the New York Times noted in its favorable review, the seasonally changing gourmet meals at 490 West are often a family effort. Ippolito comes from a restaurant family, and on the weekends, Norine and his wife, Meredith, help him prepare his upscale bistro cuisine in the white- and taupe-hued dining room.

The plates they carry are strewn with artfully assembled dishes: wildflowers perch atop stacks of shrimp and greens; vibrant, fuschia-streaked sprouts crown a fillet of just-caught fish; and sun-yellow sauce highlights a row of mussels. However, Ippolito and his family don't just choose ingredients for their beauty; they collect organic and locally acquired produce whenever possible, and every fish is wild and brought to the kitchen the very day it's served. No added antibiotics or hormones sully the menu's natural meats, and there are even some gluten-free dishes available—but they don't respond well to pickup lines. Examples of these conscientiously culled inputs include escargots exalted by the Times, steak, baked brie, and salmon. A tasting menu whets appetites for crab cakes, and a prix fixe menu showcases multiple-course specialties.

Philippe Jericho is built on the recipes of founder Philippe Chow, who brought his culinary flair to New York in 1979. While working in the steam-filled kitchen of a Manhattan eatery, the chef spent hours learning to make dim sum, developing proficiency in hand pulling noodles and training shrimp to pan fry themselves. Philippe eventually left to establish a gourmet-Eastern-eateries network in California, Florida, and New York. At the Jericho location, which has been repeatedly lauded by Zagat, diners scoop handcrafted noodles at white-clothed tables, surrounded by slender, modern wall sconces and waving ranks of alabaster orchids. In the dining room that Forbes magazine called "a sea of calm," crimson accents set off hues of red wines and fire trucks with their noses pressed jealously against the windows. Chef Chow passes on many of his recipes and techniques in an array of cooking classes.