François Payard Is Keeping it Local With Southold Social

Southold is changing. Food and wine lovers have always been able to identify the hamlet, with a population of 6,000, by its most famous restaurant, the North Fork Table & Inn, which opened under chefs Gerry Hayden and Claudia Fleming in 2006 and is now helmed by the Michelin-starred John Fraser.

For its accolades, the North Fork Table & Inn has always been an occasion restaurant, and that singular occasion restaurant has, to some degree, defined the dining culture of the hamlet.

“[John Fraser is] always the high-end restaurants,” says James Beard Award-winning chef François Payard, who opened a neighboring restaurant, Southold Social, in June. “My idea was to be the cool bistro and brasserie. That’s where my target was.”

It’s part of a larger conversation, Payard says, between him and Fraser, and, more broadly, between him and the community. Southold is changing, Payard says. Southold is becoming a food lovers’ destination, with places like Southold Social at the eye of the storm. “I think now, more and more, the town has a lot to offer,” Payard says of Southold. “They have great restaurants.”

François Payard, a third-generation chef who perfected his kitchen skills at La Tour d’Argent in Paris and later opened Payard Patisserie & Bistro in New York, has recognized, in Southold, a need for casual, origin-based cuisine. “People can come two, three times a week,” he says of Southold Social. “That was exactly what Payard was.”

Southold Social, he says, invokes his past work in that way, offering guests slightly larger, more comforting portions of foods like seasonally focused pastas (when we spoke, a pappardelle preparation of eggplants, tomatoes and zucchini — a deconstructed ratatouille — was due to be replaced by a set involving butternut squash), East End seafaring specialties, and dishes from the grill.

“We try to buy direct as much as possible,” Payard says of his menu’s sourcing, stressing the importance of local farms. One major benefit of having a restaurant centrally located in Southold, he says, is that the restaurant benefits from the lack of travel time. “If a company from New York went to Satur Farms because, the salad, you get the same salad four days later, because by the time it goes to New York, and by the time it goes to storage,” he says. “But we’re lucky. We pick it up from the farm, fresh from the day.” That’s a distinct advantage to living among some of the state’s finest agriculture: farm-fresh produce, the very day it is picked.

Southold Social is a renovated, bi-level restaurant, with ties to a past identity (original wood beams, teak flooring, antique furniture where applicable). It seems Payard has a goal in mind: to restore beauty in dining. “The décor is very simple. It’s beautiful and elegant, but it’s never over-the-top,” he says. “I want to be like Payard New York, but more local,” he says. Banquettes: everywhere. Placemats, for casual service. The bar, outside the terrace, he says, is similar to Sag Harbor’s Le Bilboquet, a see-and-be-seen French-ish restaurant that overlooks the water. Collected items populate the restaurant, too, like a table Payard found on his travels, as well as a locally sourced antique table and bar.

Right now, the restaurant is without tablecloths, but Payard is considering adding them in the off-season, to elevate the experience for local guests. “The idea, for me, is not to cater just to the New Yorker. The local is more important.” He plans to keep the restaurant open through the turn of the year, closing for the months of January, February and March, when Southold is the slowest.

But even with this temporary closure, Southold Social — and François Payard — are part of a larger piece of a puzzle of reimagining Southold as a destination for the hungry. To do that, you may have to reimagine Payard, too, because if there’s one mischaracterization that Payard wishes to correct, it’s this: He isn’t only a pastry chef.

Although many may know him best for his work in patisserie (yes, this is the same François Payard who worked patisserie in the lauded kitchens of Le Bernadin and Daniel), he’s quick to correct the assumption that he’s an unaccomplished savory chef. “Everybody thinks I’m a pastry chef,” he says. “But I can cook as much as I can bake. There was, one day, a competition in Hawaii with six big chefs, and I won the competition cook-off.”

The ever-changing savory menu at Southold Social, in all its complexity, belongs to Payard, so it may be surprising to hear that his dessert menu is streamlined. The chef offers four plated desserts, ranging from a cracked-top pavlova with a mango and passion fruit sauce to a deconstructed lemon tart, served with shards of crispy meringue and a basil anglaise.

But the pièce de résistance, Payard might tell you himself, is the Payard chocolate dome, an homage to his titular New York City restaurant, a marriage of chocolate mousse, hazelnut dacquoise, and hazelnut crémeux, sheathed in a dark chocolate glaze. “When you cut through the cake, it kind of oozes a little bit,” he says. “It’s very rich, and I sold 50 or 60 a night.”

It’s hard to think of much to say besides: Welcome to the neighborhood.