Review: Bayview Kitchen in Amityville
The jerk chicken sandwich at Bayview Kitchen in Amityville. Credit: Yvonne Albinowski
Is it a diner, a Caribbean restaurant, or a club? All three of these descriptors work for Bayview Kitchen, an Amityville haunt that should be on your breakfast and lunch rotation.
Bayview Kitchen
Range of entrees: $11-$23
Handicapped accessibility: No stairs, has a ramp. Individual bathroom.
Attributes: Celebrations, Family-friendly
Reservations: No
393 Bayview Ave., Amityville
The place gets wild for Sunday brunch, when there's a DJ. But most mornings and afternoons, the venue is calm and collected, with most of the excitement coming from the assertively spiced food, not the room. Chefs Antoine Reid and Asim Henry didn't change much about the place since its days as George's Famous Grill and Restaurant, a neighborhood diner. But the menu is now a mix of soul food classics and Caribbean fusion, given the chef treatment.
Chefs Antoine Reid and Asim Henry create a mix of soul food classics and Caribbean fusion, including spicy shrimp and grits. Credit: Yvonne Albinowski, Daniel Brennan
The kitchen is particularly gifted with the fryer, and out of it comes hot crusted shrimp to pair with waffles, fried chicken for sandwiches and tender slabs of whiting. This flakey fish, whiting, is fried to a golden hue, set atop a glorious bowl of chunky, cheesy grits. The slim fillets taper and curl up on the ends, leading to perfect crunchy bites. But you can also get your grits with salmon or shrimp, sauteed in a Jamaican jerk beurre blanc sauce done up like a scampi with bell peppers, tomato and onions.
Sandwiches are a big portion of the menu here, and Bayview does not mess around with its baba jerk chicken sandwich. The rub on that tender thigh is twice as spicy as most jerk chicken, although some of that is tempered by the sweet sorrel bbq sauce and the fat slab of grilled pineapple. It's still a wallop, even when it's tucked into that pillowy brioche bun.
Credit: Yvonne Albinowski
Notable dishes
The whiting and grits steal the show with peppery slabs of fried fish over cheesy porridge. The restaurant also makes a killer waffle, which you should get paired with crispy fried shrimp.
Tip:
The music can get pretty loud during Sunday brunch, so noise-sensitive folks should avoid dining on Sunday after 1 p.m. when there's a DJ.
The coco crispy chicken sandwich is a bit more unwieldy, because the chicken is perched on a pillow of Jamaican coco bread. This sweet, doughy roll is named so because it's got coconut milk in the batter, and is often wrapped around Jamaican patties like a sandwich. Here it's got a glorious hunk of fried chicken thigh scattered with wisps of cabbage and pickled red onion. Messy it may be, but it gets the award for most original fried chicken sandwich on the island (Long Island).
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Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.
