The corner of Huntington village that went quiet last September is about to smell like a wood grill again. Luca Steak, the second restaurant from the team behind Luca in Stony Brook, opens Friday, August 21 at 417 New York Ave., the address where Red served Huntington for a quarter century. The last piece of paperwork fell into place this week: state records show the restaurant's liquor license was issued on August 14 and took effect the same day, and the reservation book is already open.

A quarter century of Red, then eleven dark months

For 25 years, 417 New York Ave. meant one thing in Huntington village. Red was the kind of place a town measures itself by, a New American dining room that outlasted nearly every restaurant trend of two decades. When its chef retired and the restaurant poured its last glass on September 21, 2025, the village lost one of its anchor tenants, and the space has sat dark through the fall, the winter and the whole of this summer.

Eleven months is a long time for a prime address in one of Long Island's busiest restaurant villages to stay empty. Huntington has watched other beloved rooms close over the past two years without quick replacements, so a marquee space filling back up is news in a way it would not be in a town with more vacancies than history.

The Stony Brook connection

The group taking it over has done this before, about twenty minutes east. Luca opened in the Stony Brook Village Center in 2022, a modern Italian room at 93 Main St. built around handmade pasta, in-house production and Long Island sourcing. Behind it is David Tunney, who grew up in Setauket, graduated from Ward Melville High School and built the Old Fields restaurant group, along with partners Rory Van Nostrand, Anthony Argiriou and chef Luke DeSanctis.

The original Luca has spent three years earning the kind of reputation that travels. Newsday's restaurant critic put it on her list of the best Italian restaurants on Long Island in 2025, and getting a table in Stony Brook Village on a weekend has become its own small sport.

Luca Steak is the group's bet that the same approach, applied to a steakhouse, plays in Huntington. The new restaurant's own announcement keeps the details close, but the shape is clear: this is a chef-driven room from a team whose first restaurant made its name on doing things from scratch, landing in a village that supports exactly that kind of dining.

What the license tells you

The New York State Liquor Authority issued an on-premises license to the restaurant's operating company, HuntingtonSteak LLC, on August 14, with an effective date of the same day. That is the document that separates a construction project from a restaurant. A steakhouse without a wine list is a cafeteria with better beef, and the timing here, a license in hand exactly one week before the announced opening date, is what an on-schedule opening looks like from the outside.

The opening date itself comes from the restaurant: Luca Steak's site lists Friday, August 21, and reservations are live through Resy. For a first weekend at a new restaurant from this group, in this village, the smart move is booking before the first reviews land rather than after.

What it means for Huntington

Huntington village runs on a simple economy: full dining rooms keep the sidewalks busy, and busy sidewalks keep everything else alive. Every month a major space sits empty, the whole street feels it. The old Red corner coming back as a serious restaurant, run by people with a track record twenty minutes away rather than a national group testing a market, is the version of this story a village hopes for.

There is also a neat symmetry in what is arriving. Red spent 25 years as the special occasion room for a generation of Huntington families. A steakhouse is the most special occasion format there is, and the space is inheriting the exact job it has always had: birthdays, anniversaries, the dinner that marks something. The name over the door changes Friday. What the address is for does not.

Luca Steak opens Friday, August 21 at 417 New York Ave. in Huntington village. Reservations are available now through Resy.