Best Food in Staten Island – “Blue” Restaurant – Snug Harbor

"Blue" Restaurant - North Shore - Staten Island

Just had lunch the other day at “Blue” on the North Shore opposite the Snug Harbor Museum campus.

Snug Harbor

The old R.H.Tugs Restaurant jumped the shark in the nineties but ownership hung on to celebrate a twenty fifth year anniversary I guess for the sake of nostalgia and shabby chic?

This new restaurant with a basic Mediterranean cuisine actually surprised me along with a major interior architectural redo of the old basic structure. The Bar area is now doubled in size and more of a lounge complete with a few lounge chairs.  The restaurant is refreshingly bright with almost floor to ceiling picture windows facing the river and giving you a breathtaking, up front in your face, view of that major hidden forgotten asset in Staten Island, and that is of its long forgotten water front. 

The interior of the restaurant area is refreshingly simple. The walls are painted a Mediterranean color with Gothic Revival woodwork accents to match, compliment the hidden architectural gem of Snug Harbor across the street. This interior background tells you that so much thought and preparation went into this place. That forethought and care is also found in its fantastically fresh, tasty and excellent food.

What I sampled was from the Lunch Menu BTW. The pasta entre with clams and shrimp was the best I have eaten in a restaurant anywhere.  Seafood, fresh, fresh, fresh (you can taste the sea). I also had a taste of my companions’ dishes. The Angus burger, exceptionally excellent. And a lunch time special pastrami sandwich which was a quality, light tasting, not standard heavy, meat sliced and served with a real sense of style and excellence across the board of a creative eclectic menu.

They have an impressive wine list. Lunch for three with two appetizers, crab fritters - yum, three entrees, two cocktails, and one desert, a key lime pie to die for, and coffees all around for desert was for present day standards reasonable and under one bill.  You pay for quality and believe me quality is far and some distance between in that forgotten (gem) of a borough. That quality is found here in Snug Harbor at "Blue".

Blue

1115 Richmond Terrace

Staten Island NY 10310

718-273-7777

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