Zabar opens at Amagansett Farmers Market

Aug 5, 08 7:02 AM   2 members recommended this article

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Eli Zabar at the Amagansett Farmers Market on Friday, his opening day there. KYRIL BROMLEY

Eli Zabar promised that his new version of the old Amagansett Farmers Market would be open by Friday and it was, to the obvious delight of drivers rubbernecking as they went by. It happened to be August 1, the first day of the Hamptons’ most popular rental month, and a steady stream of cars, boats in tow and bikes on top, was making for Montauk that morning under sunny skies.

Some drivers, spotting the familiar espresso-capuccino-latte line across the road, stopped, or tried to. Parking on the Montauk Highway within easy walking distance of the market is as iffy as ever, a matter of luck or good karma. On Saturday, when a church fair was happening around the corner, it was just about hopeless. The lanes nearby were left to absorb the overflow.

Mr. Zabar’s latest venture is still very much a work in progress, but the fine hand that created Eli’s Manhattan and the Vinegar Factory and E.A.T. on Manhattan’s East Side can already be discerned. The boss himself, a slim dervish of a man, was all over the place last weekend, directing electricians, arranging cucumbers, showing wide-eyed employees how he wanted the coffee ground. Eli’s is noted for its coffees, many of which have made the trip east at $10 or $11 a pound.

Sniffing some just-ground beans, Mr. Zabar wrinkled his nose. “A little acid smell,” he told the young man at the machine. “Add some flavor to it. If it’s too coarse, the water’s not going through; you won’t get extraction. There’s a range where it’s going to work. The machine is calibrated.”

“See that color right there? When I came in this morning it was really light. So I smelled it. It could be a little more flavor than this.”

He hurried off muttering to himself: “But people who drink it light ...”

The reborn market also showcases Eli Zabar’s own brand of ice cream, in creative flavors such as apple pie, and his inimitable bread, which is not cheap. (The food critic Gael Greene once wrote, “So what if the rogue charges an elbow and a kneecap for crab cakes. He can never be a villain in my book, thanks to the genius of his supernal breads.”)

Out back, overlooking fields that have lain fallow this year as the sale of the market to Margaret De Cuevas of Amagansett was pending, families were having morning muffins together. Breakfast orders that make a long line longer, like scrambled eggs on toast, are gone, not to return. “No more eggs,” said Mr. Zabar, whose wife is Devon Fredericks, daughter of the East Hampton real estate broker, Tina Fredericks.

The Peconic Land Trust is leasing the market, which Ms. De Cuevas is expected to give to the Trust eventually as part of a complex land preservation deal that was negotiated by her, the town and the trust. Mr. Zabar is subleasing it for three years, through 2011. Last month, when the lease was signed, John v.H. Halsey, the trust’s president, said the hope was to “enhance the regional food that we have.” So far, though, Mr. Zabar seems to be interpreting “regional” pretty broadly. Little stickers on many of the vegetables and fruits, including small yellow plums and apricots in plastic boxes, say “Red Jacket Farms,” which, according to Google, is in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, “along the rolling hills of Seneca Lake.”

The upstate produce is marked “local,” but there is little or nothing for sale as yet that could honestly be called that. One exception might be the very fresh lettuce from Anderson Farms on Middle Road in Riverhead. A half-barrel of beautiful basil, strategically placed at the entrance to the market, pleasantly scents the rows of plastic; it too may hail from Riverhead.

Cheeses at least proclaim themselves as Eli’s own; no sign of local cheese so far. There is at least artisanal cheesemaker in the Hamptons, Mecox Bay Dairy in Water Mill. Its proprietor, Art Ludlow, has said Mr. Zabar has approached him about carrying his cheeses.

Mr. Zabar’s suppliers may change as time passes, but meanwhile there are a few Amagansett farmers and merchants who have made it plain, in letters to local papers and at a recent town meeting, that they’re none too happy about the new kid on the block.

Some are angry, others just feel dissed. What it’s not about is fear of competition, according to Elaine Jones of Vicki’s Veggies, Charlotte Sasso of Stuart’s Fish Market, Michael Cinque of Amagansett Wines and Liquors and Mary Schoenlein of Mary’s Marvelous, among others.

“The misunderstanding is that we think we’ll be hurt,” Ms. Jones said Saturday. “That’s not it. We’re mad because everyone else has to jump through hoops. Look what Cherrystones [formerly the Snowflake] had to go through to get parking! They [Eli’s] have NO parking! How does a business open in two weeks without a single review by state Ag and Market, the town building inspector, the county Health Department?”