Best Restaurant In America Plans ‘Dream Come True’ In East Hampton

New York City restaurants have opened satellites in the Hamptons before. Celebrated chefs have done “pop-ups” here before. But never has a restaurant with such worldwide acclaim undertaken as massive a move to the East End as the owners of Eleven Madison Park plan to do this spring.The three-Michelin-star restaurant is renovating the Manhattan room it has operated in since the late 1990s and the owners have decided that, rather than struggling to find other work for their staff, they will move their entire gargantuan operation to East Hampton, into the building that has been, over the years, the Spring Close House, Farmhouse and, most recently, Moby’s.

Eleven Madison Park employs several of the most skilled up-and-coming chefs in the world, and a waitstaff of dozens of individuals drilled in the intricately choreographed ballet of the finest dinner service possible. Whereas other restaurants that have done eastern outreaches have largely brought their top minds then staffed their dining room and kitchens with locals, the Eleven Madison Park owners say that they will bring pretty much everyone with them.

“We have over 100 people coming out there with us for the summer,” said co-owner Will Guidara in an email this week. “Buses, homes, cars, etc. It’s definitely a big undertaking … but our staff is like a big family, and for all of us to spend the summer out there is a dream come true.”

For the last decade, Eleven Madison Park has been among the top echelon of restaurants in the world. It is ranked third on the S.Pellegrino list of the 50 best restaurants in the world and as the best in North America. It has regularly received three stars from the Michelin Guide, the renowned French restaurant ratings seen as the most respected, and most fussy, in the industry.

And by late June it will, officially, be an East Hampton restaurant.

Mr. Guidara, who was the restaurant’s manager prior to purchasing it from creator Danny Meyer in 2011 with the restaurant’s chef, Daniel Humm, said that the Hamptons pop-up will be a more casual affair than the exceedingly intricate city version.

“It will be the food we want to eat when we’re in a beach town,” he said last week.

The restaurant will abandon its fixed-menu, fixed-price format for the summer pop-up—to be known as EMP Summer House. Rather than the usual $295-per-person, eight- to 10-course “tasting menu” that is the standard at many of the top-tier restaurants in the world, the main menu will be more casual, and a la carte—and, presumably, expensive.

Mr. Guidara hinted at the restaurant employing a tent at the Moby’s property for larger dining events.

Renovations at the restaurant are slated to begin very soon, though Mr. Guidara said that the work is unlikely to be as transformative as what goes into a full-scale redesign like they are undertaking in the restaurant’s permanent home.

“The place needs some TLC, new kitchen equipment, reorganization, etc.,” the restaurateur, who grew up just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge in Sleepy Hollow, said. “We don’t want to change too much, but we need to make sure the restaurant has our own touch. We’ll find creative ways to make that happen and we’re excited to reveal it all when it’s ready.”

The local sojourn, the restaurateur said, will be completely temporary. With the Manhattan space expected to be ready by September the staff and EMP name will be returning to the city with no plans to try to keep an eastern outpost.

Mr. Guidara said the restaurant has long purchased much of its seafood and other products from East End baymen, farmers and purveyors.

“Mike Osinski grows some amazing oysters at Widow’s Hole Oyster Co. and we love to use them whenever we can,” Mr. Guidara said. “On a trip out to the Hamptons a few years back is when Daniel Humm first tasted Amagansett Sea Salt, which immediately struck him for tasting so unique and ‘of the place.’ I’m sure a summer spent up there, in even closer proximity to all the Hamptons producers, will spark some unique collaborations.”