Welcome a new year of fine dining in Queens at Vetro Restaurant & Lounge in Howard Beach. This elegant, opulent restaurant resembles a villa perched on the water overlooking Jamaica Bay. Vetro offers exceptional dining as well as catering in one of three banquet salons that can be booked now for your 2026 events and beyond. With an award-winning wine program, classy cocktails, superior cuisine and service, put Vetro on your “must go” list of restaurants to try.
You might start your experience at Happy Hour in the Blue Lounge where hand crafted cocktails are expertly shaken or stirred, and a light menu is served. A DJ spins on Saturday nights in the Blue Lounge from 9:30pm to 1:00am with 90’s freestyle to dance the night away. Signature cocktails include the Jamaica Bay breeze, Aperol Negroni, Vetro Pistachio Martini, and Dragon’s Breath with fine bourbon, vermouth, and orange bitters.
Expect to be treated royally in the sumptuous dining rooms at Vetro Restaurant where tables are dressed in silky white tablecloths beset with candles as you sink into comfy, upholstered chairs. Plush carpeting and draperies absorb noise and create a rich, peaceful mood and define the experience of Vetro, which means glass in Italian. The outdoor patio overlooking the bay is open for al fresco dining in warm weather, and an enclosed, heated atrium next to it is open for group dining.
Vetro Restaurant is owned by the Russo Family of Russo’s on the Bay, and the congenial Chief of Operations, P.J. Connolly, is your consummate host. With its impressive wine cellar, Vetro has won the prestigious Wine Spectator Best Award of Excellence for 10 years. Vetro is an ideal venue for meals with family and friends, and intimate dates, and the prices are approachable.
Warm bread and focaccia are brought to your table with their homemade white bean salad that is so popular, customers buy containers of it and their caponata eggplant salad to take home. According to Connolly, the most popular appetizer is seafood salad, and I’d have to agree. Replete with octopus, shrimp, calamari, scungilli, red pepper, and a vinegar olive oil dressing, this dish tastes like Christmas Eve on a plate! Limoncello mussels were featured that night and I couldn’t get enough of the citrusy sauce and those juicy mussels. You’ll soak up every drop with the Italian toast that flanks the dish. Grilled octopus is perfectly charred and served atop a mound of sauteed onions, peppers, and chorizo sausage ($20). Risotto bites are made with three cheeses served with truffle aioli. Italian eggrolls are filled with homemade sausage, peppers, onions, and two cheeses, served with spicy dipping sauce ($17).
Vetro’s pasta dishes are made from Russo’s family recipes such as tagliatelle Bolognese, rich and meaty, finished with a touch of cream and fontina cheese. Russo’s linguini and clams are made with fresh, juicy Little Neck clams, garlic, white wine, and fine olive oil ($16). Orecchiette with sausage and broccoli rabe is a satisfying seasonal dish.
Main courses are cooked to order and served piping hot on elegant dishes. Shrimp Santino is a house favorite stuffed with crabmeat, cheese and herbs baked golden with oreganata crumbs in lemon butter sauce. The seafood tasting is composed of four baked clams, two sea scallops, three shrimp, and half lobster tail scampi style with spaghetti, olive oil, and garlic. I dove into my pork chop Milanese, brined, breaded, and topped with sweet peppers, onions, and garlic in red wine vinegar sauce.
Vetro Restaurant & Lounge offers steakhouse quality steaks and chops purveyed from Pat La Frieda meats. The cowboy Ribeye is 20 ounces of dry aged buttah! T-bone steak is 22 ounces and dry aged for 45 days served at prices far below traditional steak houses. The char-grilled Australian lamb chops will melt in your mouth.
Desserts are extraordinary at Vetro with kudos for the Opera Trio composed of vanilla, chocolate, and hazelnut mousses with chocolate fondant, adorned with a white chocolate leaf.
Enjoy Sunday Brunch at Vetro with lemon ricotta pan toast, frittata, steak and eggs, Benedicts, blueberry streusel cheesecake pancakes and more for just $35 including a brunch cocktail. Sunday pasta, and some of their dinner entrées are available for brunch, served 11:30am to 2:00pm, followed by dinner service.
Vetro Restaurant & Lounge is open Tuesday to Sunday for dinner from 4:30pm to 10:00pm, and later on Friday and Saturday nights. Stop in the swanky Blue Lounge for Happy Hour Tuesday to Friday and check their website for special events on the rooftop bar. Vetro offers four floors of catering space for your special family or corporate event. Visit their website for photos, menus, and catering. Exceptional dining and service await you at Vetro Restaurant & Lounge!
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Dining and Cooking