Le Bilboquet

1 Long Wharf

Sag Harbor

631-808-3767 

Dinner seven days

Let’s begin with the good news: The food at Le Bilboquet in Sag Harbor is excellent. Now permit me to regale you with the gauntlet we had to run to get into the place. 

There are no signs on the front door or anywhere else outside the restaurant. There is no phone number listed, but if you call the New York City location, someone will give you the Sag Harbor number. He or she will inform you, however, that the Sag Harbor spot does not take reservations, and yet, upon our arrival, the hostess asked, “Do you have a reservation?” To which we replied, “We were told you don’t take reservations.” Some peculiar hemming and hawing ensued, with references to technology and booking systems not being in place, yadda yadda. WTF Number One.

WTF Number Two. The front door is locked. You must walk to the back, where the paddock gate, I mean, entrance, is blocked by the Imperial Praetorian Guard. Actually, this big, burly security guard was a delightful fellow who allowed me out of the corral halfway through our meal so I could take a picture of the glorious sunset. The hostess, however, clearly suffers from prosopagnosia, or face blindness, because every time a member of our party made a move, she would stop us and say in a not very friendly way, “Can I help you?” No, thank you, we are already in here, dining in your establishment.

WTF Number Three. The Star’s photographer was told she could not take pictures without clearance. This has never happened before. So my editor said that I had to stealthily take my own pix for this review. This sent me into a frenzy of agita-induced research of First Amendment rights. Here’s what I learned: If you are in a public space you can take pictures; if you are in a privately owned restaurant, you can take pictures, but if you are asked to stop, you must. Gosh, this made me nervous.

So I got all dolled up (so they’d let me in) and my gang and I went at a frightfully early, un-chic hour on a weekday (so they’d let us in) and we got in. But we couldn’t sit outside. I think the outside was for people who had somehow made reservations.

The interior of Le Bilboquet has received a lovely makeover. There are pale wood floors and ceilings, light green tile around a see-through fireplace, celadon and cream bistro chairs, raffia light fixtures, and rosemary and lavender plants inside and out. The restaurant is light and airy, and the outdoor deck wraps around to the back where there is another bar.

After receiving a basket of slices of warm, crusty baguette with a disc of butter, we began our meal with calamari, octopus, tuna tartare, and a crab avocado salad. 

The calamari was a warm dish of frisée, beautifully tenderized squid bits, diced tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and parsley. It was delicious and just needed a bit of salt. Or as my dining companion Datenight put it: “It had no backup orchestra.” 

The octopus appetizer was a zestier dish with a bed of hummus, a scattering of chickpeas, mellowed slices of red onion, and well charred tentacles. With a few dollops of garlicky aioli and well charred tentacles. With a few dollops of garlicky aioli on the plate and lots of parsley, we all agreed this was an excellent hors d’oeuvre. 

The tuna tartare was beautifully presented. The tall round mound of diced tuna was seasoned with the usual suspects — soy, sesame, and a hint of spice. Some shredded red cabbage and brunois of cucumbers peeked out from the tuna, there was a ring of mild, creamy vinaigrette sprinkled with black sesame seeds around the plate, and it was topped with a crisp, fried wonton round. 

The crab avocado salad was pretty, but this, too, lacked acid and salinity. It had a smooth puree of avocado and tomato on the bottom, a good-sized portion of jumbo lump crabmeat bound in what tasted like a classic crab Louis sauce, and an attractive mound of baby oak leaf and other lettuces with shredded carrot and more parsley. This was also enhanced with a swoosh of the mild vinaigrette.

For entrees, we tried the steak tartare (yeah, I was on a tartare tear that night), black bass, Cajun chicken (one of Le Bilboquet’s signature dishes), skirt steak, and two sides, asparagus and string beans. 

The steak tartare was an absolutely perfect rendition of this classic French dish. It was rich and loosely bound with every flavor shining through, with mustard, capers, perhaps cornichons, creamy from the addition of raw egg yolk, a twirl of anchovy on top, and served with pale, crispy fries and a delicately dressed salad. Best of all, it was served at room temperature, not ice cold.

The black bass was perfectly cooked with skin on, served with some smashed potatoes, wilted bok choy, and a sauce Grenobloise, usually made with browned butter, capers, and bits of diced lemon flesh. This one had a lot of diced tomatoes and parsley. This restaurant is definitely mad for mirepoix and brunois and parsley. 

The cajun chicken deserves to be a signature dish. It was a generous portion of moist, tender, boneless slices of chicken breast bathing in a buttery, spicy sauce. Think Paul Prudhomme’s blackened redfish fad of the early ’80s and add a stick of butter. This was also served with the excellent shoestring fries and a lightly dressed salad. 

The skirt steak was the only semi-dud of the bunch. The steak was tough (as is often the case with skirt or hanger steak), and the chimichurri sauce tasted mostly of mild parsley, not so much of the traditional gutsy additions of red wine vinegar, oregano, and garlic. The sides of asparagus and green beans were quite good, if a bit too al dente. The green beans were romanced with a topping of frizzled shallots.

We had an excellent waiter on the night of our visit, Baptiste, who hails from Paris. There were lots and lots of bussers and runners scurrying about, along with what appeared to be a manager/maitre d’ type, but he never alighted upon tables to greet, nor made any kind of eye contact. He was an attractive fellow, clad in a tight-fitting Euro-hipster suit, and we dubbed him “Milo Ventimiglia via Boogie Nights.” We also spied Phillipe Delgrange, founder of the original Le Bilboquet, who once declared “the Bilboquet was where the most rich and famous came together, but I wouldn’t let everyone in. There was no sign outside and we didn’t answer the phone.” Quel putain Number Four.

A bilboquet is a little wooden toy with a handle with a hole, a string, and a ball. You try to catch the ball in the hole. A company called Les Jouets en Bois describes it thus: “What could be more exciting than these little games that give us great joy when we finally arrive to solve?” A table outside, that’s what.

The menu is short and printed in un petite peu pidgin Francais. It is moderately priced. Les hors doeuvres et les salades are $16 to $27, les poissons et les viandes are $32 to $48, sides are $11, and les desserts are $12.

The desserts we ordered were disappointing. We tried the tarte tatin, chocolate mousse, and lemon meringue tart. The tarte tatin was very soft and sweet and caramely, the apples surrendered to the overdose of sugar, and the crust was soggy-bottomed. The chocolate mousse was very dry, thick, and dense, almost cakey. The lemon tart’s bottom crust was raw, the filling very sweet and not very tart. One wag of a guest said the dabs of bruléed meringue resembled wolf teats, which brought to mind the mythical Lupa Capitolina that suckled the twins Romulus and Remus. Yup, we were amusing ourselves, as the restaurant began to fill with young lasses taking many, many selfies.

At the end of our meal I asked my guests the usual question: “Would you come back?” The answer was a unanimous yes, although the eminently quotable Datenight said “the menu is going to have to retreat from Paris or Deauville in winter and enter central France, perhaps Perigord. It should be warm and countrified for the locals, with wines at half the price they are now.”

Our final thoughts? Keep the food, lose the ’tude.

Eric and Adam Miller, the father and son behind Bay Kitchen Bar on Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton, have opened a new restaurant, Flagship, on the docks in Montauk. The menu features local seafood, meat, and poultry entrees, small plates to share, crudos, and raw bar items, and there is a seasonal cocktail menu. Sample dishes include fluke and charred squid crudo with passion fruit, crusted yellowfin tuna with roasted carrots, soba noodles and dashi broth, smoked pork ribs with sweet potato and a honey glaze, and a burger featuring smoked bacon, crispy shallots, and a fried duck egg. 

The wine list features Long Island and worldwide wines, and rosé for $10 a glass. A new style of bottle service offers pre-bottled chilled cocktails to serve eight, such as martinis, Manhattans, and Negronis. Service will be daily from noon to 2 a.m. starting Saturday.

At Calissa

Weekly après-beach events at Calissa, the new Greek restaurant in Water Mill, begin on Saturday and will continue each Saturday in July and August starting at 4 p.m. A reservation costs $250 and comes with reserved couch seating for four in the garden, rosé wine for the table, and individual servings of a roasted whole suckling pig, with side dishes. There will be a live D.J. providing music, and an opportunity to play bocce.

Pig Roast

Will roasted pig be the summer’s main dish? The Bridgehampton Inn is taking reservations for a pig roast on July 9. 

The inn’s dinner menu, which changes biweekly and includes the chef’s bread course, a selection of small plates, entrees, and desserts, can be found on its website, bridgehamptoninn.com. The restaurant will make custom cakes to order for celebrations.

The Crabby Cowboy — Daily

Rick’s Crabby Cowboy Cafe in Montauk is now open daily for lunch and dinner. The restaurant has added a sushi bar, where the chef will be making platters featuring three, six, or nine rolls from the menu, which includes a choice of 10 local sushi selections. Also new to the menu are a number of salads, among them a Greek salad with fresh feta, tzatziki, and dolmades, sunflower burgers from Montauk’s Naturally Good cafe, and Montauk Session India Pale Ale from the Montauk Brewery on tap. 

Summer is upon us, so now it is time to think about salads and grilling, which means it’s also time to think about oils — olive for salads, peanut for frying up those zucchini blossoms and chips, flavored oils for marinades, etc.

Information about which oils are the most healthful is constantly changing. Have you hopped on the coconut oil bandwagon? Not me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s fine product to put on your body, not in it. For accurate and up-to-date information about coconut oil, you should consult the most recent studies by the American Heart Association and the Mayo Clinic. Nuff said.

Olive oil has been the number one fat in my house forever. I use good butter in moderation, margarine has never crossed my threshold, and for the occasional frying, I’ll use peanut oil, which has a high smoking point. The smoking point is the temperature at which the oil in the pan starts to burn. Not good. Other oils with a high smoking point are avocado (currently replacing coconut oil as the healthy and popular darling), almond, light olive oil, peanut, safflower, and sunflower. Oils that will start to burn between 225 and 330 degrees are flaxseed, butter, coconut, and walnut. Unrefined oils such as wheat germ oil should not be heated at all.

It’s simple logic that you should save your favorite extra virgin cold pressed olive oil for salads or dipping, in order to let the flavor shine through. Use your less expensive, light olive oils for sautéing and roasting. For a splurge, try a high quality walnut, hazelnut, pistachio, or pumpkin seed oil as an addition to salad dressings. A little bit goes a long way, and the pumpkin and pistachio oils have a strikingly brilliant emerald green hue. It is important to remember that certain nut oils go rancid fairly quickly, so they should always be stored in a cool, dark place. I keep some of them refrigerated.

There are two brands of organic olive oils with local connections. Illyrian Press olive oil is made from kalinjot olives, bottled in Albania, and brought to us by Andrew Strong and Rachael Faraone of Springs. Their award-winning oils can be found at Marder’s in Bridgehampton, Serene Green in Noyac, the Seafood Shop in Wainscott, and numerous other locations. 

Arlotta Food Studio, which offers a variety of plain and flavored organic olive oils and balsamic vinegars, is produced by John Arlotta and his brother-in-law Mario Pecoraro of Water Mill. Their venture started with a peach farm and olive grove in California 10 years ago. They started the oil business eight years ago. The oils are available at over 50 farm stands and markets throughout New York, and the flavors range from the pure (silky and buttery!), to garlic, blood orange, rosemary, basil, lemon, and hot pepper. One of my favorites is the hot pepper oil, which Mario suggests slathering on a Browder’s bird from the North Fork. Sprinkle with herbs de Provence, salt and pepper, and roast. One of Mr. Pecoraro’s other favorite recipes is halibut drizzled with blood orange oil, a little honey and lemon, and then pan fried or grilled.

The lemon and blood orange oils are good for sweet as well as savory dishes. I’m thinking a lemony panna cotta with berries would be divine drizzled with a few drops of the blood orange oil.

When asked if they are planning to create any new flavors or if they’ve tried any that have failed, he said the lavender olive oil was not appealing and that someone had suggested they make a butter-flavored olive oil. Not happening.

Their olives are pressed in October, and the oils have a shelf life of approximately two years, whether opened or not.

Really good oils will be expensive, but they are worth it. My favorite commercial brand is Barbera Frantoia Extra Virgin, originally made with Sicilian olives, but now (like many other olive oils) made with a blend of olives from Spain, Greece, and other regions of Italy. This oil is green, fruity, herbaceous, and slightly peppery but not bitter at the end.

The varieties of olive oils in gourmet stores can be daunting. If you are impressed by that little dish of oil accompanying your bread course at a restaurant, ask the waiter to find out what it is. I have learned a lot about oils this way. Ask the chef at your favorite Italian restaurant what he or she uses. Chefs love to share cooking tips! You can also buy a bunch of bottles and host an olive oil tasting party. Take notes and send guests home with their favorite bottle. 

Whether you cook, drizzle, dip, marinate, or fry, here are some recipes to inspire you. The first two are really more like ideas for cocktail parties. Use your favorite and best extra virgin olive oils for both.

Click for recipes

The Harbor Grill in East Hampton served its last meal yesterday; its owners announced last week that they could no longer afford to keep the doors open. Increased costs, they said, have made it impossible to maintain the restaurant, which was designed to be an affordable eatery to serve the year-round community. The Harbor Grill’s sister restaurant, the seasonal Harbor Bistro, which is on Three Mile Harbor, will continue to operate.

Garden Potluck

Slow Food East End is gearing up for a summertime potluck on July 6 at Bridge Gardens in Bridgehampton. Reservations are being taken online for the event: slowfoodeastend.org. The cost is $20 per person, or $15 for Slow Food members. Guests have been asked to bring an appetizer, main course, side dish, or dessert that can serve six to eight people, made with local ingredients from the garden or farm market. Lawn chairs or picnic blankets, serving utensils, and beverages should also be brought to the potluck. A look at the website will enable cooks to see the dishes others are bringing.

 In addition to the shared meal, Rick Bogusch, the garden manager, will lead a guided walk through the garden’s edibles. The 5 to 8 p.m. event has a rain date of July 13. 

Approval Award

In other Slow Food news, Art of Eating Catering, which is owned by Cheryl Stair, a Slow Food East End leader, and her husband, John Kowalenko, has been awarded the chapter’s Snail of Approval award. The award is presented to businesses that incorporate Slow Food ideals regarding the use of clean, local food that is raised or grown in a sustainable manner. Art of Eating, which recently moved its headquarters from Amagansett to Bridgehampton, is the first caterer and event-planning business to receive the award. Other recipients include the restaurants Bell and Anchor, Almond, Nick and Toni’s, and Estia’s Little Kitchen.

Culinary Memoir

Peter Gethers, the author of “My Mother’s Kitchen: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and the Meaning of Life,” in which he describes his effort to give his aging mother, the daughter of a renowned restaurateur and a friend and mentor to famous chefs, the final gift of a feast featuring all her favorite foods, will be at the Sylvester & Co. store in Sag Harbor on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. for a book signing and cocktail party. 

Mr. Gethers is a part-time Sag Harbor resident. An author, screenwriter, playwright, book editor, and film and TV producer, he is also the author of “The Cat Who Went to Paris,” and the co-creator and co-producer of the hit off-Broadway play “Old Jews Telling Jokes.” 

Dante in East Hampton

Dante, a Greenwich Village bar and restaurant, will pop up in East Hampton at the Highway Restaurant and Bar tomorrow through Sunday, taking over the bar. Exclusive cocktails by Dante will be offered, including selections from the New York City bar menu and a classic Negroni along with unique variations of the Aperol spritz, an Italian favorite. The drinks will be available each day beginning at 4 p.m. 

Pig Roast at Baron’s Cove

Baron’s Cove restaurant in Sag Harbor will host a harborside pig roast on Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. Matty Boudreau, the restaurant’s barbecue master and executive chef, and a member of a national award-winning barbecue team, will prepare a whole smoked hog with house-made sauces and all the fixings. Also on the menu will be smoked local blackfish and peppered and smoked turkey breast. Dave Kellen will play live music from 2 to 5 that afternoon, and there will be specials on cocktails and beer.

Cove Hollow Tavern

85 Montauk Highway

East Hampton

631-527-7131

Dinner Thursday through Monday

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that dining at the new Cove Hollow Tavern, in its infancy at the time of our visit, was a seamless, professional, and delicious experience. The reason it shouldn’t have been a surprise is that this new restaurant in East Hampton is brought to you by the fine folks of Vine Street Cafe on Shelter Island.

Cove Hollow Tavern is in the old Cafe Max space, or for the more nostalgic among us, Hobson’s Choice, on the corner of Montauk Highway and Cove Hollow Road. This has always been a tiny, cozy spot and it still is. If you are familiar with Vine Street Cafe, you will see some similar simple but sophisticated design elements: white walls with exposed beams, wooden chairs and tables, dark wood floors, and a few mirrors. A rowboat hangs from a back wall, railroad spikes are bent and hammered to become coat hooks, there’s a propellor ceiling fan, and what looks like an old torpedo on another wall. The menu also has some familiar items, such as Vine Street’s stupendous mushroom Bolognese, crinkle-cut fries with aioli, weekly specials, and some serious steak offerings.

We began our meal with flash-grilled yellowfin tuna, squid ink pasta, and haricot vert with soba noodles. 

The flash-grilled tuna was a neat row of six rectangular pieces of tuna divided by pickled shiitake mushrooms. It had a mild soy ginger sauce underneath, was garnished with cilantro micro greens, and was delicious and tender. The squid ink pasta (made with tonnarelli, a square rather than round-edged pasta) was garlicky and had shreds of pea tendrils and toasted bread crumbs. It was a perfectly sized portion to be an appetizer. The haricot vert and soba noodle salad was another delicious winner. The haricot vert were finely sliced and mixed with frisée, shredded carrots, and slivers of red onion, and topped with peanuts.

For entrees we ordered the mushroom Bolognese, roasted chicken, Atlantic snapper, and a side order of the crinkle-cut fries with aioli. The mushroom Bolognese is a signature dish of Vine Street Cafe (and now Cove Hollow, I presume), and it is superb. This version was made with mafaldine pasta, a.k.a. “little queens,” a flat ribbon-shaped pasta with wavy edges on both sides. The sauce is not too rich but full of flavor. I’m thinking there is some serious porcini action going on there. The roasted chicken was also excellent, but was not crisp-skinned as my guest had requested and had been assured that it was. Oh, well. It was served on top of braised kale, which had a nice peppery bite. The mashed root vegetables alongside seemed to be primarily potatoes with some carrots for color and sweetness. 

The Atlantic snapper was a very generous portion of fish that had a superb grilled flavor (I’m not sure what Atlantic snapper is, perhaps Northern red snapper?). It was served with “energy greens,” which seemed similar to the kale served with the chicken, cooked al dente with a hint of red pepper, along with some roasted sweet red pepper strips. As much as I appreciate a light fish on top of greens, I was ever so grateful for the rich, buttery sauce adorning it. The crinkle-cut fries with aioli were outstanding, but I couldn’t tell if they were commercially made or house-made. No matter, my only complaint is that there weren’t enough for us little piglets. The aioli was perfectly balanced, just a bit tart and garlicky.

The service on the night of our visit was excellent, which is once again surprising, considering how young this place is. Our waiter, Mikel, knew his stuff, went with the flow (as in our flow), and was charming. Prices at Cove Hollow Tavern are moderate to expensive. Starters are $13 to $21, mains are $28 to $54, weekly specials $28 to $135 (that’s for a Flintstones-sized porterhouse steak for two), sides are $11, and desserts are $12.

There were three desserts that night. We tried all three, and each and every one was a winner. They were orange creme brulée, profiterole, and a berry grunt. When’s the last time you heard that old fashioned Maritime dessert name? 

Creme brulée is a great, classic dessert, seldom served in restaurants anymore. This version was a perfectly set rich custard with just the right glass-crackly bruléed sugar topping. The profiterole was one big pate a choux puff filled with vanilla ice cream and topped with an excellent fudge sauce that got slightly hardened on contact. As if that wasn’t enough, the profiterole was sprinkled with a toasted almond brittle, giving the whole thing a warm, cold, creamy, crunchy texture. 

Grunts are old-fashioned desserts similar to cobblers and pandowdies, usually made with seasonal berries or apples. with a biscuit/cobbler-type topping. They are rustic and homey. This one was made with blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries and topped with a dollop of house-made mascarpone cheese. What was particularly nice about it was the fact that neither the fruit nor the topping was overly sweet. It was a subtle dessert, letting the fresh ingredients shine through.

I have always been charmed and impressed by Vine Street Cafe and the owners/chefs, Lisa and Terry Harwood. Now they have brought that charm, simplicity, and elegance to East Hampton. Let us rejoice and pass the Bolognese!

Amagansett Less Marvelous

After 15 years in business, the Mary’s Marvelous store in Amagansett has closed. Mary Schoenlein, the owner of the shop and another in East Hampton, announced the intention to close the store some time ago, and it was shuttered this week. In a note to customers, Ms. Schoenlein thanked them for their support and said it was with “sadness and regret” that she and her staff were leaving Amagansett. The shop, which serves prepared foods, pastries, takeout sandwiches, salads, and more, coffee and tea, etc., will continue to do business on Newtown Lane in East Hampton.

At East Hampton Point

At East Hampton Point, Monday is industry night at the bar, with small bites for $5 and half-price drinks. Dinner will be served this month on Thursday through Sunday nights, and lunch will be served starting at noon on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Reggae music has returned on Sunday nights from 6 to 9 p.m. 

Reception at Inn

The Bridgehampton Inn will serve small bites, wine, and beer at a reception this evening from 5 to 7 to celebrate “Sea Rakes,” an exhibit of photographs by Lindsay Morris that will be on view throughout the summer. 

Country Night

Tuesday night is now country night at the Springs Tavern. Besides a light bar menu, with $5 hot dogs, pizza slices, and more, there will be live music by the Spaghetti Westerners at 9 p.m. Before the music, beginning at 8, there will be a free class in line dancing. Sweet Action beers and shots of Jack Daniels will be offered for $4. The Springs Tavern is open daily, but offers its dinner menu from 4 to 10 p.m. on Thursdays through Mondays. 

Healthy Eating

Stefanie Sacks, a “culinary nutritionist” and the author of “What the Fork Are You Eating,” has introduced Reboot Food 4 Grown Ups. To begin on June 26, the program is a series of classes that will show people how to “recognize, reshape, and re-nourish” their eating habits. The sessions, limited to 12 students, will focus on ingredient choice, culinary techniques for healthy food preparation, and how to successfully achieve a “food reboot.” They will take place at Scoville Hall in Amagansett. The cost is $150 per session, or $400 for the series of four, which includes recipes and an apron. The first class, later this month, will focus on breakfast. It will be followed with a session on lunch on July 3; dinner on July 10, and a July 17 session on healthy snacks and dessert.

Amber Waves Farm Market

367 Main Street, Amagansett

Open seven days, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Thanks to the generosity, wisdom, and hard work of Margaret de Cuevas, the Peconic Land Trust, and those coolest-of-cool “lady farmers” Amanda Merrow and Katie Baldwin, the former Amagansett Farmers Market has reopened as Amber Waves Farm Market, and the gals now own the nine acres behind it.

Ms. Baldwin and Ms. Merrow have been farming the land for almost 10 years, growing mostly wheat, but now the farm is dedicated to over 300 varieties of approximately 60 crops. A good amount goes to 150 C.S.A. (Community Supported Agriculture) members, and the rest is sold at the new, improved market and to local restaurants.

On a recent visit to the market, I got a tour from Juliana Nash (composer and musician by trade, now manager of Amber Waves Farm Market), and her charming son, Zane, who is 14. 

Let me just say that this is the finest curation of local and New York state goodies that I have ever seen in one place on the East End. It is essentially one-stop shopping for everything you could possibly need for a great meal, and more. There are Browder’s Birds chickens, eggs, homemade mayonnaise, Carissa’s breads, pies, pastries, divine tiny quiches, Good Water Farms micro-greens, Joe and Liza’s ice creams, North Fork Roasting Company coffees, Art of Eating and North Fork potato chips, Arlotta olive oils and vinegars, Open-Minded Organics mushrooms, Catapano, Mecox Bay Dairy, and Villa Italian Specialties cheeses. And, of course, there is a wide variety of seasonal vegetables, herbs, flowers, and seedlings.

Suppose you don’t feel like cooking? You will be delighted to find guacamole, smoked chicken, and barbecued spare ribs from Smokin’ Wolf; salads, wood-roasted cauliflower, grilled wild mushrooms, and more from Harbor Market in Sag Harbor, pestos from Almond restaurant, sauces from Vine Street Cafe on Shelter Island, homemade tortillas, pickled eggs, and Holy Schmitt’s horseradish.

Besides offering these various prepared and fresh foods, Amber Waves Farm is continuing to focus on educating school children about farming, with over 20 schools, after-school programs, and summer camps. There are also workshops throughout the summer, starting with learning how to gut a fish with Sean Barrett, that tall, cool drink of water from Dock to Dish (June 24); building a worm farm with local artist Scott Bluedorn (July 1), and other workshops like pizza-baking with Carissa Waechter, fermenting, preserving, foraging, and flower-arranging.

Some other products you will find here are beach blankets and towels, Hilary Leff’s beautiful tie-dyed scarves, Southampton Soaps, pottery from farmhouse pottery of Vermont, and those iconic Amber Waves farm caps.

Starting in July, Amber Waves Farm Market will be open from 7 to 7, seven days a week, and they hope to remain open until January. So stop by to give thanks for good deeds done in our community, purchase some of the best and freshest foods available out here, and help support our farmers. Here is a simple recipe from Browder’s Birds to get you inspired.

Click for recipe

The Oreya restaurant has reopened at the Capri hotel in Southampton and is now accompanied by the Oreya Lounge. The restaurant, overseen by Greg Grossman, its chef and owner, serves a Med­iterranean-inspired menu and has been redesigned, with the inclusion of the outdoor lounge, cocktail bar, and pool. New dishes on the menu this year include sumac-cured hamachi crudo, wood-fired lamb tenderloin, foie gras hummus, and beet salt-baked red snapper.

At the Maidstone

The restaurant at the Maidstone Hotel in East Hampton has been revamped by David Standridge, a chef at the Cafe Clover in Manhattan’s West Village. As consulting chef, he has created a contemporary American breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu that features casual, seasonal, and local fare.

Breakfast at the Inn

The Bridgehampton Inn restaurant is now serving breakfast from 8 to 10 a.m. and brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Sunday. The menu will include weekly specials. 

For Food Biz

The Amagansett Food Institute will host the first in a series of informational and networking evenings for small food producers on June 22 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the headquarters of the Plain-T iced tea business in Southampton. Participation is free, but advance registration, by emailing info@amagansettfoodinstitute. org, is required, as space is limited.

The evening will feature a presentation by Cheryl Clements, the chief executive officer and founder of PieShell, an online crowdfunding source for food businesses. There will be tastings of Plain-T’s beverages offered by the company’s owners, Alessandro and Tathiana Teixeira, time to meet other food entrepreneurs, and an opportunity to pitch a business model to PieShell. 

The Squeezery

The folks from the White Room Gallery in Bridgehampton have opened the Squeezery, a juice and coffee bar by day and bar bar by night, on Amagansett’s Main Street. The bright and vibrant space has tables and a lounge area, art, and a menu of juice combos or a la carte ingredients, as well as coffee drinks and snacks. 

Craving Ice Cream?

One option for a serving of the sweet, soft stuff is Smokin’ Wolf, the takeout barbecue shop on Pantigo Road in East Hampton. The shop has reopened its ice cream freezer for the summer.

Carissa Waechter’s new shop in East Hampton is the inevitable culmination of something she has been cooking up for quite a while. Carissa’s Breads have been popular at South Fork farmers markets, and now she will bake and sell not only breads but also cakes, pastries, croissants, and pies and jams made with fruit from local farms.

“I’m really excited to have people come in and have the experience of the smells and bubbling sounds of the loaves baking,” she said as she recently surveyed the finishing touches on the shop, which is off Newtown Lane in the former space of East Hampton Gourmet. 

The baking area takes up about 1,000 square feet. A grain mill for wheat, which she obtains in separated, wheatberry form, will be installed at the rear of the building. As for the ovens, Ms. Waechter may expect to have a personal connection with them. One is named Olive, after an olive bread that a customer especially loved; another is named Amber, in keeping with her sister business, Amber Waves Farm, and two stacked ovens are called Figs, for her favorite fruit.

“The previous owners were so helpful and nice. It was meant to be. We had been looking for a space for a while.” The best thing, she said, is that “you get to do what you love and then people take an interest, and it makes me so happy.”

Ms. Waechter said she applies “techniques and methods from the chefs I’ve trained under, but the recipes are my own developments, usually classics adjusted to incorporate something that’s hyperlocal and in season.”

Ms. Waechter, who grew up in Florida, moved to New York City on her 21st birthday to go to culinary school. She then apprenticed with several notable chefs, including David Burke, who is a TV star and author as well as a cook, and Daniel Boulud, who owns dozens of restaurants across the country and around the world, with, at last count, seven in New York City.

Along the way, she “found out it was in my blood: My great-grandmother lived on a wheat farm outside of Chicago and was a famous pie baker. She would pay the men with fried chicken dinners to harvest the wheat.” Her grandmother and great-aunt also went door to door to sell pies.

Referring to the East End, Ms. Waechter said, “I love the barter system and love that fishermen and farmers come to a farm stand, leave fish and vegetables, and get bread and pies in return.”

In 2009, on a rare day off in the city, Ms. Waechter had a roller-skating accident that changed her life. While convalescing, she got a call from Eli Zabar, of the family that owns the eponymous food emporium on the Upper West Side, who was taking over the Amagansett Farmers Market. He asked her to join the staff for the summer to bake bread. There, she met Amanda Merrow and Katie Baldwin, who had been apprentices at Quail Hill Farm and had just started growing wheat behind the market when they opened Amber Waves Farm, which is now a community supported agriculture organization with acres of crops in production and a farm stand of its own — the former Amagansett Farmers Market.

Among the Amagansetters she met that summer was John de Cuevas, a long­time summer resident who just happened to have a natural yeast culture he had started in 1965. He passed it along. She also got a rye starter, which was begun in 1999 in Southampton, and began baking and selling her breads at farmers markets. Once her business had grown, she began preparing breads at the Amagansett Food Institute’s South Fork Kitchens at Stony Brook Southampton, while helping to organize its use. 

“The financial expenses of starting and building a business from scratch are unreal, which led me to utilizing tools like the small business development center, cofounding the shared kitchen space, etc.” She acted as coordinator there for about two years while operating Carissa’s Breads. She added pies to her roster for Thanksgiving in 2014. 

Asked if she would consider expanding further, Ms. Waechter said, “I’m a serial entrepreneur, planner, and workaholic, but I’m also cautious, always writing new plans and fleshing out new ideas, and I love taking calculated risks. However, I will only commit to new projects when the timing is correct.”

Meanwhile, it is noteworthy that her wholesale bread business now has 52 inns, markets, restaurants, hotels, and beds-and-breakfasts on the North and South Forks as clients, and, with Rustic Roots Delivery, which covers Long Island and Westchester in addition to the city, she plans to send her breads to all five boroughs.

The South Fork’s easternmost farmers market starts up for the season next Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the Montauk green, and will continue weekly through the summer. In September, market day will change to Fridays. Thirty-five vendors are participating this year, offering fish and shellfish, fresh vegetables, olive oils, flowers, sea salt, pasta, bread, honey, baked goods, chicken burgers, dairy and meat products, condiments and preserves, sauerkraut, pickles, and more. The market is organized by the Montauk Chamber of Commerce, which donates proceeds to the Montauk Food Pantry. Last year, $8,705 was donated. 

At Union Cantina

The Union Cantina in Southampton is serving half-price tacos on Tuesdays, along with specials on flights of tequila and Tecate. On Wednesdays, children under 10 may eat free from the kids’ menu, and there are specials on wine and sangria. On Saturdays and Sundays, a “bottomless brunch” is served from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Meal Delivery

Epicured, a prepared-meal delivery service, is up and running on the East End. The gourmet meals are focused on healthy dining options. They are portion-controlled and feature healthier takes on favorites, along with “low-bloat, flat-belly foods.” There are breakfast, lunch, and dinner items to choose from on the service’s website, getepicured.com. 

Surf Lodge Chef

Robert Sieber, the new executive chef at the Surf Lodge in Montauk, is making some changes to the menu, which includes dishes such as sea urchin linguine, fluke ceviche, crispy prawns, and fish tacos. Mr. Sieber, who was a student of Daniel Boulud and Brian Loiacono, has worked in kitchens from Asia to San Francisco and Brooklyn. Also at the Surf Lodge this year, Brian Kim of DomoDomo, a Japanese handroll bar in Manhattan, will prepare tuna, eel, lobster, and other hand rolls to be served on the deck. 

Drive-Through Wine 

On holiday weekends, the Wolffer Estate in Sagaponack is now offering a drive-through service for purchase of cases of its Estate Rosé or Summer in a Bottle rosé wines at its wine stand on Montauk Highway. The service will be offered, weather permitting, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays of holiday weekends.