Some restaurants change their menu every season and their room once a generation. Stellina Ristorante has just done the second one. The forty-seat Italian dining room on South Street in Oyster Bay has come through a full renovation, and the result is the kind of change you feel before you can name it: the room is warmer, the light is softer, and an evening there now looks the way the food has always tasted.

We are not going to walk you through it fixture by fixture. Part of the pleasure of a room like this is the first look, the moment the door closes behind you and the street goes quiet. What we can tell you is that the people behind Stellina did not redecorate. They rethought how the room should feel from the first step inside to the last espresso.

A small room, made for lingering

Stellina has always been a small restaurant by design. Forty seats means the kitchen knows who is in the room, regulars keep their tables, and nothing about the evening is rushed. The renovation leans into that rather than away from it. This is still an intimate room, not a bigger one, and it is now an even better place to spend three hours over dinner.

Expect candlelight and a dining room that feels considered in every corner. It is the sort of space that makes a Tuesday dinner feel like an occasion and makes an actual occasion, an anniversary, a birthday, a parent visiting from out of town, feel exactly as special as it should.

The kitchen did not change, and that is the point

What happens on the plate is the same thing that earned Stellina its following. Chef Fabrizio Facchini, listed in the Michelin Italy Guide every year since 2012, still runs a kitchen where pasta is rolled each morning and a wood-fired oven does half the work. The agnolotti stuffed with braised veal and truffle, the oven-roasted polpette in San Marzano sauce, the veal chop under burrata, the pizza finished with truffle shaved at the table: all still there, now served in a room built to match them.

That is the real story of this renovation. For four years the cooking has been the reason to make the drive to Oyster Bay. Now the room is a reason too.

Sunday, all day, in the new room

If you want the easiest way to see the space, go on a Sunday. Stellina serves brunch straight through from 11 in the morning to 8:30 at night, with the full pasta and pizza menus running alongside it. A late, slow Sunday lunch in daylight is a very different way to experience the new room than a candlelit Friday dinner, and both are worth doing.

Part of a family on one street

Stellina is the founding restaurant of Stellina Hospitality, and the name goes back further than South Street. Co-owner Adriana Milana's grandparents opened Stella Ristorante in Floral Park in 1960, and Stellina, the little star, carries that name forward. The family has since built something rare in one village: L'Étoile, the French dining room down the same street; The Audrey, the all-day kitchen and bar on Audrey Avenue; and The Bay Butcher, the group's butcher and seafood market at 96 South Street. Casa Stellina carries the Italian side to Farmingdale.

A refreshed Stellina is good news for the whole village. Oyster Bay has quietly become one of the best places on Long Island to eat dinner, and its original little star just got brighter. For more on the menu and the chef, read our full spotlight on Stellina Ristorante.

If you go

Stellina Ristorante is at 76 South Street, Oyster Bay. Dinner runs Tuesday through Thursday from 5 to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 4:30 to 10 p.m. Sunday is 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., and the restaurant is closed Monday. With forty seats, a reservation is the smart move: book on OpenTable or call (516) 757-4989. The Long Island Rail Road's Oyster Bay branch ends a short walk from the door.

Stellina Ristorante · 76 South Street, Oyster Bay, NY · (516) 757-4989 · stellinany.com