Inside Tips

Oh, joy—it’s summer again.

Sigh.

Memorial Day is always such a tangle of contradictions in the restaurant industry. It’s busy, but not as busy as midsummer, and yet something inevitably goes disastrously wrong in these first weeks. There are trainees fresh from college—always too many, in their starched white shirts and belts that don’t match their shoes—the rusty veterans still not willing to admit that their months of short work weeks and quiet Saturdays have come to an end, new line cooks that haven’t quite got their

mise en place

down, and, of course, customers who somehow, inexplicably, have forgotten everything we had browbeaten into their ego-addled minds last summer.

While restaurant staffers tie on their running shoes and cross their fingers that they don’t get sat with the lady who berated a moonlighting sportswriter last week for offering some advice on how to treat your waitress like a human being, we here at “Off the Menu” are going to give you some of our own advice on where to eat this season—no browbeating this week. These tips are completely unsolicited, entirely subjective, and come with absolutely no guarantees that you will concur with the assessments. None of the recommendations here has been suggested, hinted at, edited, tinted or embellished by anyone in The Southampton Press’s advertising department.

So, how do you decide where to go to dinner? Are you looking to spy a celebrity? Are you looking for a complicated and high-minded meal, damn the price? Do you just want to see and be seen? (It’s okay—we know, it’s far from the worst trait in a restaurant customer.) Or are you simply looking for a bite you can count on to be good or better, a server to be at least fairly friendly, and the bill to not make you catch your breath?

Well, for the last several months those of us in the business have been happily scouring the landscape for you, and the following is what we have discerned, in my estimation. In other words, these are the places where the people who know every dirty and delicious secret about local restaurants go to eat when we have the time.

If money is no object and you are just looking for the most bang-up meal your black card can buy, you’ll rarely go wrong at: the perfectly named Oasis in Noyac (a hidden gem off the beaten path, with outstanding food and service); Bobby Van’s (Porterhouse-for-two, for one); Robert’s in Water Mill (pretty much fantastic everything—simple, fresh, delicious, expensive); East Hampton’s haughty 1770 House (refinement at its finest); or Della Femina (pretty much the all-around best restaurant on the East End, and priced accordingly). You’re talking probably an average of $75 a head at any of these places, and potentially a lot more if you’re prone to start reading from the bottom of the wine list.

If $70 per is a bigger chunk of your depleted stock portfolio than you want to spend, don’t worry your pretty little gold card—you are not doomed to paper napkins, overcooked meat and waiters who take smoke breaks by the front door.

No secret that Nichol’s is über-popular these days. Once Paul McCartney started hanging out there, everyone jumped on the bandwagon. But don’t pooh-pooh it—they’re popular for a reason: the food is better than most, the prices are very reasonable, and the menu is big and diverse.

Every Italian-ish eatery on the island makes fennel sausage and broccoli rabe pasta these days, usually with orchiette, but at Dee Angelo’s Pleasant Ave. Café in downtown Westhampton Beach, the crunchy sausage, tender rabe and giant pasta ears are just plain better than anywhere else. The same can be said for the steamed lobster at Oakland’s in Hampton Bays—helped considerably by the atmosphere afforded by being surrounded by water on three sides. Neither is dirt cheap, but they’re not abusive with the prices either, and you’re getting a lot for your money.

Speaking of which, yes, $18 for a burrito at La Superica in Sag Harbor is expensive as far as burritos go, but the portions are enormous, the atmosphere is giddy, and the food—lobster enchiladas, stuffed jalapenos—is scrumdiddlyumptious (if only pseudo-Mexican in its preparation).

Waterfront dining can be cheap and good, too, particularly at the Canal Café in Hampton Bays (owned by the brothers who used to run Ina Garten’s kitchen at Barefoot Contessa), or the Westlake Chowder House in Montauk (the second-best restaurant on the East End, disguised as an after-fishing dive).

If you just simply want the best burger you’ve ever had, you want to go to the old speakeasy at the 1770 House. It’s an $18 burger, but it’s perfection in ground meat and French fries, period. Make a reservation for the tavern, but when you get there, if there are bar stools open, grab ’em.

Other good burger joints: Rowdy Hall or Laundry in East Hampton, Shippy’s Pumpernickle in Southampton, the New Moon Café in East Quogue, and Westlake Chowder House. (I’m telling you, everything they make, from sushi to roast chicken, is fantastic.)

Asian food? Matsulin in Hampton Bays is aces for Chinese and Thai dishes—absolutely worth the drive from east of the canal any night ... just go 
easy on the sake. Suki Zuki in Water Mill is 
the best for sushi, even though it’s not 
as cheap as Sushi One in Westhampton.

For pure celebrity sighting potential, you have to stay east of the canal. Roberts, Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton, and Red Bar in Southampton are the surest bets on Saturday nights in summer. We’ll see what happens with the Surf Lodge in Montauk this year, but it had a pretty good Superficial-regulars crowd last year. East Hampton Point, the American Hotel, Rowdy Hall (yes, famous people eat French onion soup too), and Della Femina are close seconds for people watching.

There’s also the new Blue Parrot, which I’m not positive is going to be open by this weekend, but since Jon Bon Jovi and Renee Zellweger are rumored to be owners, or partners, or connected to it in some silly way, they will likely be around whenever it fires up its grills.

Away from such frivolities, there are several honorable mentions: Tony’s Asian Fusion in Westhampton, Sunwater’s Grill in Hampton Bays, Wild Thyme in North Sea, Paradise in Sag Harbor, Fresno in East Hampton, Q Bistro in Bridgehampton.

There are plenty of new faces on the playground this year, but you’ll probably have to wait till after next fall to hear what anyone who works in a restaurant thinks of them. Fancy-pants Phillipe Chow’s new place in East Hampton is open now, as is the slow-food themed Maidstone Arms’ new restaurant.

The four jewels in the crown of Jean Luc’s crumbled empire are facing uncertain summers as our favorite clownish restaurateur skitters about with a Keystone Cops carload of creditors following him at every turn.

Also still cloaked in darkness is Almoncello. With two very successful incarnations of Almond (one in Bridgehampton, one in Manhattan) roaring along, it remains to be seen what Eric Lemonides and Jason Wiener will do with the perennially struggling spot. Perhaps, Almond Three.

Or maybe a new theme—we need an Indian restaurant. How about Almondoori?