{"id":184347,"date":"2026-04-03T10:54:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T10:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/184347\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T10:54:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T10:54:24","slug":"salt-on-the-water-taking-over-former-ita-kitchen-in-east-moriches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/184347\/","title":{"rendered":"Salt on the Water taking over former ITA Kitchen in East Moriches"},"content":{"rendered":"

For three summers, ITA Kitchen has offered magnificent views of Tutthill Cove and Moriches Bay from its perch in East Moriches\u2019 Atlantic Marina, but now the Italian American eatery\u2019s signature faux-flower archway has been dismantled to make way for a second location of Merrick\u2019s Salt on the Water, a top waterfront restaurant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The two businesses have overlapping ownership: Christina and Salvatore Sorrentino operate ITA Kitchens in Garden City South and Patchogue. (The original, opened in Bay Shore in 2019, closed last year.<\/a>) Salt\u2019s co-owner, John Cestare, is also a partner at ITA Kitchen and has\u00a0had an eye on the property for years. “We always thought of this as a pop-up,” Christina said. “We were\u00a0holding it until it became a Salt.”<\/p>\n

\"Salt<\/p>\n

Salt on the\u00a0Water in Merrick is expanding to East Moriches.\u00a0 Credit: Daniel Brennan<\/p>\n

Salt, it would seem, is a fitting concept for the spot. Since 2016, its sprawling deck has attracted crowds to the shores of Merrick\u2019s East Bay, a body of water overlooked by only one other eatery, Fabio\u2019s<\/a>. Cestare, whose partners in Salt are Matt McBride and Steve Buccella, said 2023 would have been premature to open in East Moriches. “This wasn\u2019t something that could happen overnight, and we weren\u2019t ready to do it at that point.”<\/p>\n

Renovations have begun and, he said, the menu will\u00a0be identical to the one in Merrick. He is shooting for a June opening.<\/p>\n

\n\tErica Marcus, a passionate but skeptical omnivore, has been reporting and opining on the Long Island food scene since 1998.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For three summers, ITA Kitchen has offered magnificent views of Tutthill Cove and Moriches Bay from its perch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8695,9,11,10,49,51,50,821],"class_list":{"0":"post-184347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-feedme","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-new-york-state","13":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-state-news","15":"tag-restaurants"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}