New chef brings ever-changing menu to OSO at Southampton Inn

A formerly familiar face on the East End has just completed his first summer season as executive chef at Oso Restaurant at the Southampton Inn. After being away from the area for 10 years, Bryan Naylor has returned to the Hamptons, and in an interview last week he said he’s glad to be back.

Mr. Naylor initially worked on the East End at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk—that is, until his television career took off. According to Mr. Naylor, in the late ’90s, when the resort and spa had extra money in its public relations budget, it decided to start a local, cooking-themed cable television show. The show, starring Mr. Naylor, became increasingly successful, and eventually led Mr. Naylor to co-hosting “Taste This T.V.!” a nationally syndicated PBS cooking program.

His experiences with “Taste This T.V.!” took Mr. Naylor to restaurants and locales throughout the United States, as well as such countries as Spain, Italy and Iceland. He tasted local cuisines and worked with a variety of chefs, but Mr. Naylor said last week that he eventually grew tired of the show.

“The cooking went away,” he said. “I felt uninspired. I lost my passion for food.”

So, two years ago, the frustrated chef decided to leave the show and accepted a position teaching at the Culinary Academy in Syosset. He said teaching and experimenting with recipes at the Culinary Academy allowed him to rekindle his love of cooking.

“I got back to the roots of my cooking,” he explained. “I was cooking without limits, working with students who were not yet jaded by the business.”

After a year of teaching, Mr. Naylor decided he was ready to return to the restaurant business.

And when he met Dede Gotthelf, owner of the Southampton Inn, last year, he knew Oso would be the right place to reestablish his restaurant career.

“We got along really well,” he said of Ms. Gotthelf. “Even before I saw the property, I knew I wanted to work for her.”

Guided by his intuition, Mr. Naylor took the reins at Oso last October and, since then, he said he has continued to develop the restaurant’s offerings, menus and overall ambiance.

He described the restaurant as “modern American, with an emphasis on contemporary flavors,” adding that the menu relies on “market-centric,” local ingredients.

A distinguishing feature of the restaurant, Mr. Naylor said, is that the menu changes daily. “We’re in a hotel,” he said. “I want guests to be able to come back every night and try something new.”

“Some things work, some things don’t,” he added. “It gives us room to play and do a lot of different stuff, all the while staying true to our theme.”

Oso offers a prix fixe special all 
night on Thursdays and from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday to 
allow diners to sample some of Mr. Naylor’s dishes for $29.

Another benefit for local foodies of the restaurant’s Southampton Inn site is the availability of breakfast seven days a week, from 7 to 10:30 a.m. on weekdays, and from 7 to 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Mr. Naylor said though the dinner menu varies, certain very popular dishes are regularly represented. He also said that diners can generally expect to choose from, at the very least, steak, fish, chicken, pasta or risotto entrées.

One weeknight earlier this month, the dinner menu included a typically diverse selection of both starters and entrées. Starters ranged from mixed baby field greens with frizzled onions, grape tomatoes and aged balsamic, $9, and Buffalo mozzarella and heirloom tomato, with micro basil, white balsamic, fermented tomato and extra virgin olive oil, $12. to a Caesar salad, with romaine hearts, foccacia crisp and shaved Reggiano, $9, and lobster café au lait, a lobster bisque with cognac foam and a lobster “swizzle stick,” $10.

Entrées included a torchio pasta with jewel tone tomatoes, Reggiano cheese fondue and basil oil, $24; a “Never, Never” prime sirloin with whipped potato, baby fennel and truffle demi, $39; free range chicken roasted in a grain mustard demiglaze with lemon scented broccolini, $26; a special adaptation of “pork & beans,” Berkshire pork porterhouse with white bean cassoulet, in a local apple reduction, $27; wild salmon with sticky rice and Chinese barbecue sauce, $28; and North Atlantic halibut, steamed in a chorizo-clam emulsion with sautéed red chard, $33.

For dessert, Oso features such specialties as a “Berry Explosion” of raspberry mousse, strawberry broth milk chocolate, and crackling elderberrry creme, $9; fallen chocolate soufflé, $10; New York style cheesecake, $9; flourless chocolate cake, $10; and an assortment of sorbets and gelatos along with coconut or passionfruit pavé, $10.