RESTAURANT NEWS | NEW YORK
Aqualine Bets Big on Seafood on Staten Island
BOTA Hospitality Group’s restaurant in St. George serves salt-baked branzino, lobster fra diavolo, and an eight-course tasting menu.
AQUALINE | MAP | INSTAGRAM
By Maria Rodriguez
6:09 a.m. ET, Sept. 1, 2026
AUTHOR BIO: With a day job that requires constant travel, Maria Rodriguez is likely a regular at your favorite restaurant. She’s reviewed restaurants since 2007 in magazines from Spain to Seattle.
A whole Mediterranean sea bass arrives sealed in a thick shell of salt. A server breaks through the crust, pulls back the skin, and removes the bones before dressing the fish with olive oil and lemon.
The branzino is the signature dish at Aqualine, a seafood restaurant in the St. George neighborhood of Staten Island. It comes from BOTA Hospitality Group, which also runs BOTA Supper Club two doors down and Cafe St. Mark’s nearby.
The group went all in on the details here. Servers wear crisp blue suits. White tablecloths cover the tables in a dark dining room filled with brass fixtures, blue banquettes, and candles. The restaurant calls dinner a ritual, and it has assembled much of the equipment required for one.
The menu begins with a $150 seafood tower for two, stacked with oysters, chilled lobster, black tiger shrimp, tuna, crab, and caviar. Tuna tartare comes with avocado and yuzu, while grilled octopus is served over gigante beans with salsa verde. There are scallops with cauliflower and caviar and lobster fra diavolo with Calabrian chile and squid-ink spaghetti.
Aqualine also offers an eight-course seasonal menu at its kitchen table. The courses change, moving through oysters, crudo, pasta, and larger seafood dishes, with an optional wine pairing. Tasting menus have spread into dining rooms across New York, although few of them have crossed the harbor to Staten Island.
That is perhaps the bigger bet being made here. St. George has the ferry terminal, the theater, and views across the bay, but it rarely appears in the breathless accounting of where New Yorkers should eat next. Our guide to the best Staten Island restaurants already includes Sri Lankan cooking, tacos, pizza, and plenty of red sauce. BOTA Hospitality Group is adding a small collection of restaurants around St. Mark’s Place that asks diners to see the neighborhood differently.
At Aqualine, that means bringing out the caviar, buttoning the blue suits, and carrying a salt-covered fish through the dining room. The restaurant has decided the occasion is worth making. Now it’s waiting to see who comes across the water.
Chef Nicco V. Salanitro leads the kitchen at the waterfront restaurant in Huizenga Park.
By ERIC BARTON
