The most expensive dinner reservation in Islip this fall is also the one where the restaurant keeps none of the money. Chefs Against Hunger, the dinner series that turns Tellers Next Door into a rotating stage for Long Island's chefs, is back for another fall run, and the first confirmed seating is October 5. Every dollar of the proceeds goes to Long Island Cares, the Harry Chapin Food Bank.

How the series works

The format has stayed the same because it works. One night, one chef, one Long Island winery. Cocktail hour starts at 6:30 p.m. in The Parlor, dinner follows at 7:30, and the meal runs five courses with five wine pairings, each menu built by that night's visiting chef rather than the house. It all happens at Tellers Next Door, the intimate room beside Tellers: An American Chophouse at 599 Main Street in Islip, which trades its usual role for a season of borrowed kitchens.

The series is the creation of Michael Bohlsen, whose family restaurant group runs Tellers and who sits on the Long Island Cares board. He started the dinners in 2019 as small-room fundraisers, watched the pandemic shut them down, and has been building the fall series back since. Last year's run sold out its dinners and raised more than $46,000 for the food bank.

The fall 2026 lineup so far

Four dinners are confirmed on the Long Island Cares calendar, with more of the fall schedule still posting.

October 5: Eric LeVine with RG|NY. LeVine is the chef and owner behind a six-restaurant portfolio that includes 317 Main Street in Farmingdale, Vico and The James Room. His night pairs with RG|NY, the Riverhead winery.

October 19: Stephen Gallagher with Raphael. Gallagher owns The Trattoria in St. James, the cash-only rustic Italian room whose menu changes daily. His path to owning it started with collecting shopping carts at a King Kullen before a restaurant job in Stony Brook set the hook. Raphael, the Peconic winery, pours alongside.

November 2: Dayven Alonso with Paumanok. Alonso runs the kitchen at H2O Seafood and Sushi in Smithtown, the Bohlsen group's fish house, and an avid fisherman cooking with Paumanok's Aquebogue wines is about as North Fork a pairing as a dinner can get.

November 3: Gregg Lauletta with Bedell Cellars. Lauletta, executive chef of Louie's Prime Steak and Seafood on the Port Washington waterfront, brings three decades of fine dining that include time under Tom Colicchio and Todd English, matched with Bedell's Cutchogue bottles.

Why this dinner and not another one

Long Island's charity calendar is crowded with galas, and most of them send the cause a percentage after the catering hall takes its share. This one is billed differently: the food bank's own event pages state that 100 percent of the proceeds benefit Long Island Cares, with a host restaurant, visiting chefs and partner wineries all lending the night rather than selling it.

The beneficiary matters locally in a way that is easy to underestimate. Long Island Cares, founded by the singer Harry Chapin in 1980, supplies food pantries across Nassau and Suffolk at a moment when the lines at those pantries have been growing, not shrinking. A tasting-menu dinner is an indulgence. This one converts directly into groceries for neighbors who cannot afford their own.

Getting a seat

Reservations run through the Long Island Cares events calendar at licares.org, where each dinner has its own RSVP page. If last fall is any guide, waiting is a mistake: every seating sold out. The calendar also holds whatever dinners get added to complete the fall run, so a date that does not work today is worth checking again in a week.