Review: Luca in Stony Brook

Luca faced a particular challenge when it opened in Stony Brook Village Center in 2022: It was replacing a beloved eatery, Pentimento, whose closing the previous year had become a local cause célèbre.

First, owners David Tunney and Rory Van Nostrand (who also own Old Fields restaurants in Greenlawn and Old Fields Barbecue and Ella’s in Huntington) took on the design. In place of its predecessor’s cozy rusticity, Luca gleams with refined cool.

The marble bar is separated from the main dining room by a regiment of bark-stripped red pine tree trunks. Walls, ceilings, floors and upholstery are all shades of white and gray; warmed up by the rich wood of the tables and chairs. The white-and-wood theme continues outside to the pebbled patio.

Executive chef Luke DeSanctis created an elegant, modern menu with many tweezer-precise platings that belie the soulfulness of his food. His bold flavors draw inspiration from regional Italian cuisine and, as in Italy, the dishes change with the seasons.

You will usually find the refreshing Sicilian orange and fennel salad, here gussied up with dates and pistachios; braised calamari with ’nduja (spicy sausage), white beans and kale, tagliatelle with a classic Northern Italian (i.e. light on the tomatoes) Bolognese; veal chop with cremini mushrooms and rosemary-vermouth cream; dry-aged New York strip with blistered tomato and porcini dust.

DeSanctis’s composed entrees tend to skew more New American than Italian. Count yourself lucky if you catch the spaghetti with clams or carbonara. All the pasta here is made in house, except for the gluten free, which is available for every preparation.

Desserts are excellent, particularly the lemon tart.

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