The third star.
Three restaurants named for the same thing in three languages, on two streets in one village. This is the third one.
The name.
It happened by accident and then on purpose. The first restaurant was called Stellina because of a family word. The second was named L’Étoile because it was a French room and the word was right. By the third the pattern was a decision.
- stellinaItalian — “little star”South Street
- l’étoileFrench — “the star”South Street
- hoshiJapanese — “star”Audrey Avenue
Nothing about the cooking here is Italian or French. Only the name rhymes.
Small, and meant to be.
The old Stellina Bakery stood in this space for years, and plenty of people in the village still call it that. It is a narrow room with good bones and a lot of light in the afternoon, which matters not at all after five o’clock but made it easy to want.
We took out most of what was in it. What is left is a counter, a short run of tables, and a grill — which between them is the entire restaurant.
A counter for 10
Hinoki, unfinished, replaced rather than refinished when it wears. You sit facing the person cutting, which is the whole point of the seat.
A room for 34
Tables and a short banquette, ordering from the same card the counter cuts from. Quieter, and easier if you want to talk to the people you came with.
One grill
Binchotan, lit before service and burning down through it. Everything cooked here comes off that, one skewer at a time.
Four mornings a week.
Fish comes in whole or in large pieces and is broken down here. That is slower and more wasteful than buying it pre-cut, and it is the only way to know how old something is, how it was handled, and whether it wants two days of ageing before it is worth serving.
Some of it comes through Toyosu. Some of it comes off boats that land less than an hour from this door — fluke, black sea bass, scallops, and in the right weeks, bluefin caught in the same water the village looks out at. Which is which changes with the season rather than with what reads better on a menu.
It is why the card moves, why the counter has no printed one, and why the honest answer to “what is good tonight” is usually a question back.
Four restaurants, two streets.
hoshi is part of a small group that has been building one room at a time in and around Oyster Bay for a few years now. Same owners, same standards, entirely different kitchens.
Come and sit at the counter.
10 seats, 12 courses, and about ninety minutes to make the case.