O Mandarin raises the bar for authentic Chinese dining on Long Island 

Peter Liu is bullish on the Year of the Tiger. His sumptuous new Chinese restaurant, O Mandarin, has been softly open in Hicksville since the last week of 2021 but by the start of the Lunar New Year this week, the kitchen will be fully staffed, Peking duck on the menu and the liquor license on its way — hopefully by the end of the 15-day celebration.

Liu’s first O Mandarin opened in Hartsdale in 2017 and received the kind of acclaim rare for a Chinese restaurant: Listed in the current Michelin Guide, its chef, Eric Gao, was a James Beard best-chef semifinalist in 2020. But Liu is upping the ante even higher in Hicksville, with a free-standing 7,000-square-foot building that used to be Mio Posto. Liu bought the property two years ago and has painstakingly transformed it into an opulent homage to Chinese culture. Much of the material comes straight from China — reclaimed bricks and tiles, a delicate replica of a Tang-dynasty temple that mimics its own reflection in water, an antique wash stand and, just beyond the front doors (rescued from a country house in Shanxi), two 100-year-old lion-topped carved stone hitching posts.

"It took a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of thought," Liu said. "A lot of this stuff is from my personal collection. I wanted to present not just the food but the culture of China. The interior is as much about education as it is about ambience."

The food is as grand as the décor. The recipes are authentic, but the presentations are designed to impress: a ziggurat of wok-braised shrimp crowned with microgreens, pan-fried rectangular dumplings stacked like Lincoln Logs, a tremblingly tender whole pork shank cradled in a stop-sign-sized lotus leaf. With most starters and dim sum between $11 and $14 and most entrees between $20 and $28, prices are a little higher than at most Chinese restaurants on LI. And why, Liu asks, shouldn’t they be?

"You get what you pay for," he said. "We buy the best meat, fish and produce. We are serious about what we do. Chinese food, Chinese culture has a 5,000 year history. I believe that my generation has the responsibility for transforming American people’s perceptions of what Chinese cooking is about."

The very name of the restaurant, O Mandarin, declares its independence from what Liu sees as the American norm. "The first immigrants from China to the United States were Cantonese, from southern China," he explained. Their cuisine — heavy on the seafood, delicately seasoned — formed the basis of what most Americans consider "Chinese food."

But "O Mandarin" stands for "original Mandarin," a term that Liu uses to connote the rest of China. "Our menu draws on the traditions of the northern and western regions," he said. Beijing, Shanghai (where Liu was raised), Sichuan, Xian, Shaanxi, Shandong (whence comes Gao) — "these cuisines have more meat, more spice."

In truth "Mandarin" is replete with meaning. It signifies the cuisine of the Chinese capital, where imperial chefs would raid the whole country’s repertoire to provide the very best meals to the emperor. (Peking duck, which bears the capital’s old name, is the most famous of the Mandarin dishes.) And, of course, Mandarin is the official language of China, whereas Cantonese is spoken mostly in Guangdong, the country’s most populous province which Europeans originally called "Canton."

"Fit for an emperor" would certainly describe Chong Qing chili chicken, a tangle of fried chunks, Chinese celery, cilantro, sesame seeds and lots of hot peppers that somehow manages to be fiery and delicate at the same time. Another of the "chef’s signatures," succulent jasmine-tea-smoked duck reposes, legs crossed, with a garnish of ruffled shrimp chips.

When it comes to dessert, O Mandarin does not take the common route of green-tea ice cream and fortune cookies. There is an annex off the kitchen, visible to diners, where a chef specializes in dumplings and pastry. If you have room at the end of your meal, order the "Emperor’s Eight Treasures" comprising eight sweets whose recipes date back to the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644) and are presented in a black-and-red lacquered box.

You’ll find six whole fish preparations on the regular menu and ordering one during the two-week Chinese New Year celebration is de rigueur. "The word for fish, ‘yu,’ sounds like the word for abundance," Liu said. "And so it is considered good luck to eat a whole fish for New Year’s."

Peter Liu appreciates the luck but he is confident that Long Island is ready for O Mandarin. "Over the past five years I have had so much success with the residents of Westchester," he said. "The Long Island market is bigger and denser. There are people here who travel all over the world and who know what Chinese food is supposed to taste like. I think Long Island is ready for O Mandarin."

O Mandarin is at 600 W. Old Country Rd., Hicksville, 516-622-6666, omandarin.com