Jewel Restaurant in Melville Long Island is Perfect for the Holidays

James Williams Monday, December 17, 2012

When it comes to fine dining there are several places on Long Island that you can get a great meal with terrific environment at a semi-reasonable cost. It seems like every month there are a few new restaurants in Long Island that open their doors. Not that I'm complaining. It gives me plent of opportunity to try out these new places. One of the people who has a knack for great dining is Long Island's own Tom Schaudel.

This hard working restaurateur was born and raised in Carle Place. He had his first restaurant job there as a dishwasher. He later went to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and opened his first restaurant, Panama Hattie’s, in Huntington in 1983. After that, he sold the restaurant in the late 1980s, only to be recently closed. Including Schaudel's newest restaurant, the year-old Jewel in Melville, it is estimated that he has owned 14 or 15 restaurants on Long Island. That is quite a good run with an oustanding reputation of building great restaurants.

The trend continues with the newest, Jewel.

Jewel is also the largest of Mr. Schaudel’s restaurants, with seating for 215, with room for 150 in the atrium, located elsewhere in the building and usually used for private parties. As you enter the building, through a foyer, you are met with burbling fountains bathed in colored lights on both sides of the walkway. In the main dining room, strings of blown-glass balls hanging from the ceiling create a celebratory mood. As the holidays continue to get closer this produces a tremendous mood.

Another amazing aspect of Jewel is the fact that you can actually watch the kitchen work as the chefs prepare the meals. The glassed in kitchen is a nice touch.

For the most part, the food is excellent. You start with a basket of warmed rolls that are really quite good. The grilled octopus, or a crab salad, make for tremendously delicious appetizers. From there you can choose the oh-so tender root-beer-braised short ribs with buttermilk smashed potatoes, baby carrots and pickled onions or blackened catfish atop a tasso hash with Creole mustard on the plate. Of course, there are others, but these are what we enjoyed while taking in the sights, sounds, and tantalizing smells of Jewel.

Check out Jewel during your Christmas shopping excursions, or as an after holiday treat, you definitely will not be disappointed.

jamesw@longislandyellowpages.com

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