By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Dining on the water – along the Saugatuck River and on the shore of Long Island Sound – has long proved alluring to Westporters and visitors alike.

A new waterfront destination, La Plage restaurant, is slated to open Wednesday at the Inn at Longshore, 260 Compo Road South, adding to the town’s rich history of waterfront dining and seafood restaurants.

La Plage (“the Beach” in French) is a new venture of the Greenwich Hospitality Group, owners of Artisan restaurant in Southport and the Delamar hotels in Southport, Greenwich and West Hartford.

The Westport restaurant, with a refreshed design, will specialize in seafood, plant-based dishes and sustainability, all complemented by sweeping views of Long Island Sound.

“We are excited to introduce our newest restaurant concept,” said Charles Mallory, founder of the Greenwich Hospitality Group. Mallory joined with restaurateurs Michael Ryan, Hicham Amaaou and Executive Chef Ferderic Kieffer to form Longshore Beach Ventures, LLC, and create what the group describes on the restaurant’s website as a waterfront casual restaurant and oyster bar.

“Our goal is to pleasantly surprise our guests with sea- and garden-inspired dishes that are tasty, healthy and environmentally friendly,” said Kieffer, who is also executive chef at Artisan.

Along with the inn’s famous waterfront view, La Plage will offer seafood specialties from localities around the U.S., including Copps Island oysters from Connecticut, pink peel-and-eat shrimp from Florida, East Beach Blonde oysters from Rhode Island and of course, Maine lobster. The menu also includes a variety of pinsas made from hand-pressed pizza dough, Faroe Island salmon, burgers and steak for meat eaters, as well as a collection of French desserts. 

The bar menu features some originals: Smoke on the Water, a tequila drink, and the Catamaran, a gin offering made with grapefruit and rhubarb liqueur.

The Inn at Longshore, at the center of Westport’s Compo Beach and Longshore recreation areas, stands on land purchased by the Town of Westport in 1960. Once a country club, the property and inn were developed into a public beach, golf and recreation facilities, and restaurant venue by the town, and are the subject of a documentary film, “Longshore Club Park, Westport’s Crown Jewel.”

Before that, the Longshore property was a farm, with a privately owned home built by David Bradley in 1846-47.

The inn has been the home of several restaurants previously, most recently the Pearl, and before that, Splash. 

The new restaurant’s name, La Plage, is reminiscent of another famed beachfront restaurant in Westport, La Café de la Plage, at Old Mill Beach on Hillspoint Road. La Café de la Plage was in business for decades overlooking the water, and was replaced by Positano restaurant around 2001 before that restaurant moved to a site at the Westport Country Playhouse.

La Plage will open in phases, starting Wednesday with dinner served from 4 to 10 p.m. every Wednesday through Sunday. Lunches and weekend brunches, well suited for Longshore golfers and tennis players, will begin in the next few weeks with a Club House Prix Fixe menu until 4 p.m. The restaurant’s waterfront patio is also expected to open soon.

For more information about La Plage, call  203-684-6232 or visit  www.laplagewestport.com