Manhattan

City Chic Moves to

Manhas
the Suburbs

S
hiny Mercedes and BMW coupes and convertibles
continue to roll into the Americana Manhasset shopping
center parking lot long after the über-sophisticated
boutiques close at 6 p.m. This upscale commercial
hub on Long Island’s tony North Shore hosts the nation’s top
brands—names like Armani, Escada, and Gucci—but it’s not
the fashion-forward window displays that draw the crowds so
late into the evening. The customers are coming for Gillis and
George Poll’s modern Asian bistro Toku, the latest addition to
an empire that relies on this affluent community’s hunger for
Manhattan-style dining experiences closer to home.

40 SEPTEMBER 2008 | santÉ

 restaurant profile | By Ashley Brenon

Toku
Americana Manhasset
2014C Northern Blvd.
Manhasset, NY 11030
516-627-8658

Owners Gillis and George Poll

General Manager Cliff Dragonetti
Seats 200
Employees: Management/Kitchen/
Dining/Bar 5/20/40/5
Gross Annual Restaurant Revenue
$7 million
Executive Chef Tomoyuki Kobayashi
Sous Chef Jeffery Scalla
Food Style Pan-Asian
Average Dinner Check $60
Average Number of Dinner Covers
275
Beverage Manager Charles Kim
Wine List Focus Asian

sset:
Wines on List (number of selections)
115
Wines by the Glass 11
Wine Cellar (number of bottles) Several
hundred
Average Bottle Price $75
Cases Sold per Month 60–70
Bar Focus Asian-inspired specialty
cocktails
Signature Drink Chili Passion Martini
Average Drink Price $12.50

Glass, stone, dark wood, and ivory leather unite to create

an environment that is simultaneously modern and warm.
photographs courtesy of arch photo

Toku’s exceptionally bright and flavorful sushi is prepared

and jan van pak photography

by masters with hand-picked, fresh-each-day fish from the

Fulton Fish Market.

santÉ | SEPTEMBER 2008 41

 “The island was lacking these sorts of restaurants,” older
brother Gillis explains. Filling the gap in the market has led to
tremendous success and the discovery of a formula for owning
several winning restaurants, all within a few miles of one another.
“People no longer have to stay in the city after work to get a good
meal,” Gillis says. In fact, Long Island diners can eat at a different
Poll-brothers establishment nearly every night of the week.
All in the Family
The intuition that guides this prolific team did not evolve from
thin air. The brothers attribute much of their success to having
been raised in a restaurant family. Their father, James Poll,
owned successful restaurants in Brooklyn and at Rockefeller
Gillis (left) and George Poll agree that a touch of extravagance goes a long
way in creating a memorable dining experience.
Center beginning in the early 1960s. Working in the family
businesses and earning restaurant- and business-related degrees
inspired Gillis, George, and middle brother Dean to open
a seafood eatery, Riverbay, in Williston Park in 1980. (Dean,
now independent, owns Riverbay and operates the Boathouse
Central Park Restaurant in New York City. He intends to pursue
the lease for Central Park’s Tavern on the Green when it expires
this fall.) The three launched Bryant & Cooper, a dapper Jazz
Age–style steakhouse, in nearby Roslyn in 1986. Two Majors
Steak houses, modest family establishments, followed, but it was
Bryant & Cooper’s overwhelming success that signaled demand
for more sophisticated dining options.
Gillis and George responded by opening a high-end Italian-
Mediterranean bistro, Cipollini, in the Americana Manhasset in
42 SEPTEMBER 2008 | santÉ
2005. When another space in the same shopping mall became
available, the brothers once again looked for a hole in the North
Shore’s culinary spectrum. “We did not want to duplicate what
we already had, of course,” Gillis relates. “And we did not have
a special, big, grand Asian place.” Toku opened in the summer
of 2007.
Although Gillis and George enjoy the challenge of opening
each new establishment, they admit that launching Toku was a
special accomplishment. Until Toku, the brothers had operated
within their comfort zone. They created classic spaces and
served creative versions of the foods that they grew up on. “We
grow up as Westerners. We grow up with Italian food. We grow
up with steaks, grow up with fish. We don’t grow up with Asian,”
describes Gillis. “That was new to us—and a lot
of fun—but a lot of work.”
The restaurant runs no promotions. They
neither list specials to increase sales nor advertise,
but the people keep coming back. “You have
people in this area who are very loyal to the
company, and they go one night to Cipollini,
one night to Toku, the next night to Bryant &
Cooper. It’s like this rotating circle, and they
literally eat with us six or seven nights a week,”
articulates Kerry Whaler, a manager at Toku.
Gillis and George attribute their customers’
loyalty to a proven formula: “It’s a pretty place,
eats wonderfully, has nice people. Why wouldn’t
people want to come back?” Gillis asks.
Getting the Look
To create a visual feast in the mold of the nation’s
Asian greats—Morimoto, Buddha Bar, and
Buddakan—Gillis and George recruited local
architect Paul Bentel, who designed The Modern
restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art, and
Cathy Wells, an interior designer and friend.
The result is warm and modern. Through the
chain-mail curtains that screen the restaurant’s
entrance, guests see sake drums, wooden bells,
and an illuminated onyx bar. Dark wood and
ivory leather walls are hung with paintings by China’s Li Jin.
A stone bust of a young and slender Buddha presides on the
opposite side of a glass wall that can be closed for private parties
or opened completely to extend the dining room. “There are no
cutting corners anywhere here. That feeling is almost one of a
kind,” Gillis imparts.
The restaurant’s lighting system, from Lutron Inc., is tied to
an astronomical clock. Settings change automatically based on
season and time of day. The system’s setting harmonizes with
the natural light during the day to emphasize energy, while
the evening setting plays on the candle glow and gives the
dining room a shadowy, tranquil feel. “It changes the ambience
significantly from day to evening,” says Toku’s General Manager
Cliff Dragonetti.

For the sophisticated pan-Asian menu, Gillis and George
hired Tomoyuki Kobayashi as executive chef. Although he was
born and raised in Japan, all of his professional experiences
have been in French restaurants. “My grandmother [and] my
mother taught me how to cook Japanese food, but I use French
technique,” Kobayashi declares. Together with Gillis and George,
Kobayashi visited restaurants three or four times a week during
the seven months of research that preceded the restaurant’s
opening. “You have to see a lot. You have to try a lot. And then
you have to work with good people who have the background
to decipher what these things are made of and how it’s going to
work in the kitchen,” Gillis remarks.
On the Menu
The dinner choices rely on a mix of innovative and classic pan-
Asian dishes. “It’s a sharing type of menu, so the food always
comes to the table when ready,” describes Whaler. “It encourages
a more social atmosphere. Our food doesn’t sit in the window,
and it is easier for the servers.” Appetizers include Foie Gras
and Pineapple Skewers ($12) and Kurobuta Pork Gyoza ($11).
Entrees range from Kung Pao Chicken with Peanuts, Zucchini,
and Hot Chilies ($19) to Miso Black Cod with Shishito Pepper
Salad and Bonito Shavings, which is a favorite for $26. “We like
to have our food cost around 33 to 35 percent,” Gillis discloses.
“We have some expensive items, and we have some that are not
as costly, so it balances out.”
More than a dozen sake drums and three hulking
nineteenth-century wooden monastery bells lend their
understated beauty to the authentic space.
A lunch menu was added in February. The only major change
since the restaurant’s opening, it rests on 15 different salads
designed to share. “We have a lot of ladies up here shopping
every day, so we wanted to have it a little more conducive to
what they’re interested in at lunch,” Gillis relates. “And if it’s a
price-conscious person, they can select from a variety of items at
one fixed price.” The sushi bar, available with lunch and dinner,
relies on the best ingredients and recognized sushi chefs. Fish
is hand-chosen at the Fulton Fish Market and delivered daily.
Maki rolls range in price from $7 to $12, and the chef’s selection
comes in three sizes for $35, $75, or $100.
Behind the bar, sake, wine and 16 Asian-inspired cocktails
share equal billing. Beer, shochu, and shochu cocktails round
out the drinks menu. One of the most popular cocktails is the
Chili Passion Martini: Stolichnaya vodka, passion fruit puree,
fresh ginger, and orange and cranberry juices mixed with seeds
of red chile pepper ($14). The Long Island Green Tea mixes
Zen Green Tea Liqueur, Cointreau, and Bacardi Silver Rum.
The wine list incorporates 115 selections from every major
wine-producing country. Riesling and sparkling wine are often
recommended for their compatibility with fresh fish and often-
spicy Asian fare.
santÉ | SEPTEMBER 2008 43

The Main Ingredient
Although the style-food-staff equation certainly contributes to
the group’s success, the true secret is its devotion to absolute
consistency. “And that’s where a lot of restaurants get tired,”
Gillis reveals. The trick to maintaining consistent performance,
according to the Polls, is having many layers of observation.
On the first line of defense against slippage are the owners
themselves. Their restaurants’ proximity allows them to check in
at each nearly every day. Commenting on the Polls’ commitment
to detail, Whaler notes, “Everything is supposed to be put on the
table the exact same way every single time, and they come in,
44 SEPTEMBER 2008 | santÉ
Kobayashi drizzles his octopus carpaccio with ponzu
sauce and fried leeks with sizzling scallion oil.
Mango tofu pudding with coconut coulis is served in
a steaming Asian teapot.
and they make sure. They’re here. They say
hello to guests, have lunch, check the food,
make sure the music is playing the right way,
check in on the reservations for the night.”
The second line of defense that guards
against inconsistency is Toku’s experienced,
loyal, and professional staff, which has mas-
tered the details taught by Dragonetti and
other managers and provides superior hospi-
tality shift in and shift out. To make sure ev-
eryone is cued to provide excellent service,
Dragonetti holds daily staff meetings that last
from 15 minutes to an hour. He emphasizes
individuals’ specific proficiencies, rather
than spooning out generalized cheerleader-
like motivation. “I always tell my waiters that
the most important skill set is their language
skills—how to describe a dish and how not
to,” Dragonetti says. He coaches staff mem-
bers to make specific drink suggestions as
they greet each table and encourages them
to recommend items that the customer has
never tried. The mastery of each detail adds
up to what Dragonetti refers to as “the wow
factor.”
And last in the line of guardians of con-
sistency are the guests themselves. “We have
customers that come so often and become
so close to us. They care so much about our
success that they’re very open to tell us if
something might have been different than
before,” Gillis says. “They tell us to take a look at it. If I feel that
they’re right, I’ll address it.” He continues, “Everyone is check-
ing out the restaurant all the time. Our customers are checking
on it, we are checking on it, the people that are checking on it
all the time are checking on it . . .” Gillis trails off. “It’s work.
We’re all working hard, but having people be happy from their
experience in your restaurant is very fulfilling,” he concludes.