Tomorrow might be a good time for a jaunt east, with a couple of stops that will remind you that winter is truly over, and summer on the way.

    On Napeague, the Lobster Roll, a k a Lunch, reopens for the season tomorrow. Until later in the spring, it will be serving on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

    Navy Beach, the restaurant that opened last year on Montauk’s Fort Pond Bay, also reopens tomorrow. In honor of the seasonal event, and of that other event taking place across the pond tomorrow (the royal wedding), Navy Beach will offer $9 drink specials all weekend, including a Pimm’s Cup, sparkling Cava, and sangria. New on the menu this year will be fish tacos, Yunnan ribs, tuna sashimi and avocado salad, green papaya salad, lobster Singapore, coffee-rubbed New York strip steak, and oil-poached halibut. The restaurant will be open on Friday through Sunday, serving dinner only on Friday and lunch as well on the other days.

    Inlet Seafood on East Lake Drive in Montauk is open for dinner on Thursday through Sunday, and serves lunch on Friday and Saturday as well.

    On Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton, the Harbor Bistro reopens for the season tonight.

New at Bostwick’s

    The opening of Bostwick’s Chowder House for this season last Thursday drew out plenty of fans of the eatery and its inviting staff. New on the menu at Bostwick’s this year are a number of dishes, such as a seared tuna with soba noodle salad, fried zucchini chips, crab-stuffed flounder, a fresh tuna burger served with mango chutney and arugula, fluke Milanese, and an oyster po’boy.

    Service for now is on Thursday through Sunday for lunch and dinner.

Page at 63 Main

    A prix fixe at Page at 63 Main in Sag Harbor includes a choice from a list of “small plates,” with dishes such as farm table greens, grilled melon salad, Asian steamed buns, and carrot-ginger soup, entrees such as vegan soba noodles, pan-seared organic chicken, braised monkfish steak, and pork tenderloin, and dessert. The cost is $30 per person, plus tax and gratuity.

Arrivederci, Della Femina

    Della Femina restaurant on North Main Street in East Hampton will serve its last meals on Saturday. The space is being taken over by another eatery to be called the East Hampton Grill.

Spring Openings

    The annual springtime parade of seasonal restaurant reopenings continues this week.

    The Hideaway will show its Mexican roots by offering food and drink specials at its 2011 premiere tonight, for Cinco de Mayo. The restaurant is at the Diamond Cove Marina in Montauk.

    On Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton, the Harbor Bistro begins its sixth season tonight with complimentary appetizers at the bar, and $3 Corona beers. The waterfront bistro will once again be offering a $29 prix fixe all night at the bar, which can include a choice of three courses, or two courses plus a glass of wine. On Thursday to Sunday between 5 and 6 p.m., a three-course prix fixe is offered for $19. The menu for it changes nightly and features a choice of a pasta, fish, or meat entree, soup or salad to start, and a dessert.

    When Pigs Fly, a takeout shop on South Etna Avenue In Montauk, has reopened for the season. There is a new menu with lower prices, including 40 items that are $10 and under. Menu choices include ribs, pulled pork, tacos, wings, hamburgers, wraps, sandwiches, fried chicken, and more.

More Celebration

    Also celebrating Cinco de Mayo tonight will be La Fondita in Amagansett, with some Mexican takeout specials including chicken in mole sauce, pork or chile and cheese tamales, and tres leches cake.

Rugosa’s Bar Menu

    New dishes served exclusively for casual nibbling at the bar are on the menu at Rugosa restaurant in East Hampton. They include crispy salmon skin with aioli, fingerling potatoes served with gruyere, prosciutto, and creme fraiche, and mussels with garlic butter. Choices from Rugosa’s a la carte and prix fixe menus, as well as half portions of any of the fish or pasta entrees, are also available at the bar.

Specially Roasted

    Customers who order dessert at Townline BBQ in Sagaponack will get a free cup of coffee made with a blend of organic beans hand-roasted especially for the restaurant by the Hampton Coffee Company. The offer will be in effect through Memorial Day. Townline BBQ is open on Thursdays through Mondays beginning at 11:30 a.m.

Mother’s Day Dining

    At the Harbor Bistro, Damien O’Donnell, the chef, will prepare dishes for an a la carte brunch, including crab Benedict, omelettes, steak and eggs, and shrimp tacos. Brunch will be served from noon to 3 p.m.

    Also on Sunday, there will be a holiday prix fixe offered — three courses for $29, or two courses with a glass of wine, a mimosa, or a Bloody Mary, from 3 to 8 p.m. A la carte selections will not be offered. Appetizer selections will include coconut-golden curry steamed mussels, crispy shrimp tacos, and heirloom tomatoes with fresh mozzarella. Main courses on the menu include chicken fettuccine, pistachio-crusted tilapia, grilled salmon, and Jamaican jerk pork tenderloin. A special children’s menu will also be offered. Reservations have been requested.

    Also serving a Mother’s Day brunch from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. will be the Gulf Coast Kitchen at the Montauk Yacht Club. The cost will be $38.95 per adult and $17.95 per child ages 7 to 13. Younger kids can eat for free. Selections at a carving table will include roasted leg of spring lamb, alder-smoked Berkshire ham, and garlic and shallot-encrusted rib-eye steak. There will also be a raw bar for seafood, eggs and omelettes cooked to order, salads, other entrees, and desserts.

    At Navy Beach restaurant on Montauk’s Fort Pond Bay, lunch will be served on Sunday from noon to 3:30 p.m., and dinner will start at 5 p.m.

    A Mother’s Day prix fixe, for $40, including a glass of Cava for all moms, will be available. Reservations have been suggested. There will be a choice of appetizers and entrees, including oil-poached halibut with rock shrimp hash, buttermilk fried chicken with cheddar cornbread and coleslaw, and a burger.

    The menu for brunch at Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton, to be served on Mother’s Day from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., will include house-cured salmon bruschetta with mascarpone, arugula, fennel, and kalamata olives, brioche French toast with Nutella and carame­lized bananas, polenta with smoked bacon, rock shrimp, and poached egg, chicken hash, and pan-roasted cod. Side dishes and a selection of pizzas will also be served.

    Nick and Toni’s will serve dinner on Sunday night starting at 6, which will include a choice of holiday specials such as soft-shell crab and Colorado rack of lamb served with sautéed fiddlehead ferns.

And Jazz, Too

    Jazz comes with brunch on Sunday at LT Burger in the Harbor in Sag Harbor. From noon to 3 p.m., the Jim Turner Band will perform. Specials to be offered will include turkey sausage and spinach soup with fresh mozzarella and oven-dried tomatoes, a salmon burger with fixings, and specialty drinks and cocktails.

    Across Main Street in Sag Harbor, at Sen, Mother’s Day will mean gifts for moms who come in for dinner — a $10 gift card that can be used at the restaurant at a later date. Beginning this weekend, Sen will be open for lunch on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 2:30 p.m.

    At Phao, tucked in next to Sen, moms who visit on Sunday from 5 to 10:30 p.m. will be given a free glass of the Wolffer Estate Late Harvest chardonnay. In other Phao news, as of the first day of May, Sen’s sushi rolls can also be ordered there.

    A new addition to Sag Harbor, Page at 63 Main will celebrate Mother’s Day with lunch and dinner service, including a $30 dinner prix fixe. Midday service will be from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with dinner commencing an hour later.

    At the Living Room restaurant at c/o The Maidstone in East Hampton, a three-course Mother’s Day prix fixe will be available from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and will include a glass of rosé. The cost is $65 per person.

    Serafina restaurant in East Hampton will provide complimentary bellinis or mimosas to mothers during brunch service from noon to 4 p.m.

Wolffer’s 2011 Rosé

    A release party for this year’s Wolffer Estate rosé will take place at the winery in Sagaponack on Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. A $25 admission fee, a portion of which will be donated to the Long Island Wine Council, will include a glass of rosé, cheese, and live music. Those interested in attending have been asked to call the winery for reservations.

Montauk Eateries

    Fishbar on East Lake Drive will have an opening party tonight from 5 to 9 with free hors d’oeuvres and, between 6 and 9, drink specials. All are welcome to attend.

    East by Northeast is serving Sunday brunch each week from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. There is a $15 prix fixe offered Sunday through Thursday and entertainment on weekends. ENE is closed on Tuesdays.

    At the Harvest on Fort Pond, Mother’s Day will bring afternoon and evening service, from 2 to 9 p.m.

Primed Beachhouse

    The Beachhouse opened in East Hampton last weekend in the Montauk Highway space formerly occupied by Prime 103. Described as a “creative American steakhouse and sea grill,” its specialty dishes include, as appetizers, lobster-glazed seared local sea scallops over truffled sweet creamed corn, and a red and yellow beet and goat cheese terrine, using cheese from the North Fork’s Catapano Dairy. On the entree list are bucatini pasta with Maine sea urchin, pan-roasted tilefish, and dry-aged prime steaks. The restaurant has a raw bar, a patio for alfresco dining, and a mahogany bar with three TVs. Beachhouse is serving dinner seven nights a week.

New Mexican?

    The Bridgehampton building that Almond restaurant vacated last year, before settling down at the other end of the hamlet at the corner of Montauk Highway and Ocean Road, is reportedly to become the home of a Mexican restaurant called Agave.

Cooking Demonstration

    A free demonstration at the Loaves and Fishes Cookshop in Bridgehampton on Saturday from noon to 2 p.m. will feature a selection from “The Splendid Grain” by Rebecca Wood, a winner of the International Association of Culinary Professionals and James Beard Awards.

Backyard

    The Backyard Restaurant at Solé East resort in Montauk reopens for the season tonight. The menu, prepared by Larry Kolar, the executive chef, centers around fresh fish from Montauk’s waters and seasonal produce from local farms and the Backyard’s herb garden. It includes dishes with Mediterranean and South American influences.

    Appetizer choices include fluke ceviche prepared with red onions, lime, and jalapeno chile and Long Island duck confit with celery root and micro watercress. Among the entrees are grilled monkfish, scallops, skirt steak, a half natural chicken, and barbecued pork short ribs paired with sides such as mashed potatoes, bok choy, escarole, and French fries or rapini, and items such as baked cannelloni or cavatelli with pulled pork, oven-dried tomatoes, white beans, and broccoli rabe. Signature desserts include lavender cheesecake, chocolate espresso torte, and homemade jelly doughnuts.

    On Sundays, there is an $18 brunch served along with live jazz and bossa nova music, and on Mondays, the Backyard is planning to offer specials on Mexican food and drinks.

New at Pierre’s

    There are some new dishes on the menu for spring at Pierre’s restaurant in Bridgehampton. They include chilled pea soup with mint and rosemary, shrimp and scallop ceviche served with a passion fruit concoction and avocado, hanger steak with béarnaise sauce and arugula, soft-shell crab with a mild red pepper sauce, and linguine with shrimp and grilled artichokes.

Thai at Old Whalers

    Thai food will be on the table at Sag Harbor’s Old Whalers Church tonight, when the sous chef from Phao restaurant prepares a sampling of dishes such as summer rolls, lemongrass soup, pad Thai, and coconut ice cream. The event, part of a series called East End Chefs, will begin at 6:30 p.m. and cost $30. Space is limited. Advance reservations can be made by calling the church.

Restaurant Roulette

    There is always lots of restaurant news in the mad scramble toward Memorial Day. Here’s this week’s scoop.

    Spring Close restaurant, which returns the farmhouse restaurant on the Montauk Highway in East Hampton to (almost) its original name, is now open daily for lunch and dinner beginning at 11 a.m. Weekend brunch service will begin soon.

    The restaurant, in the roomy space that was most recently the Laundry, and originally the Spring Close House, is a collaboration between Colin Keillor, who was the manager at Nichol’s in East Hampton, and Michael Lomasney, a Cold Spring Harbor restaurateur. On the menu are appetizers such as tuna tartare, scallop and bacon sliders with apricot chutney, wings with Thai peanut dipping sauce, and lobster cocktail. On the entree list are strip steak, seafood pasta, bouillabaisse, pork T-bone with cara­mel­ized onions and apples and cider gravy, dill and Dijonaise-crusted sal­mon, and chicken breast, while lunch sandwich choices include a shrimp or chicken salad wrap, portobello burger, press­ed mozzarella, tomato, and basil, lobster roll, or pressed roast beef with arugula, boursin, and shallot.

    The space on Sag Harbor’s Main Street that previously held restaurants such as Peter Miller’s, JLX Bistro, and La Maison is to become a branch of the Pomme Cafe, an eatery in Astoria specializing in French cuisine.

    18 Bay, formerly of Bayville, has recently moved digs to Shelter Island. In the space where Planet Bliss was, Adam Kopels and Elizabeth Ronzetti, co-chefs, owners, and husband and wife, hope to open on Memorial Day. There will be a daily chef’s menu, with fresh produce and seafood from local farmers and baymen, and homemade pasta. Allergy and vegetarian-friendly, dinner will be served on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

    South Edison restaurant in Montauk, which first opened last June, reopened for the season last night. Todd Mitgang, of Cascabel Taqueria in Manhattan, and formerly of Crave Ceviche Bar, is the chef. The restaurant has a “seafood-centric” menu as well as a raw bar. Starters include chili-marinated shrimp salad with grilled rice, cherry cola-braised Berkshire pork belly with cherries, radish, spring garlic, and mashed chickpeas, and fried belly clams. Among the entree choices are Mr. Mitgang’s version of a lobster roll, served with a black garlic mayonnaise, grilled local porgy with roasted fennel and apple, chard, and crab sauce, spicy pulled pork tacos, and handmade linguine with baby octopus, leeks, tomatoes, olives, and feta. For the next month or so, South Edison will be open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday beginning at 5:30 p.m. Reservations can be made online at southedison.com/reservations, or on the Open Table Web site.

    Also in Montauk, Dave’s Grill has opened its doors for the summer, down on the Montauk docks. Dave’s is serving dinner on Thursdays through Sundays.

New Manager

    Douglas Sheehan is the new general manager at Rugosa in East Hampton. With his father, Ed Sheehan, and Bobby Thomas, Mr. Sheehan opened the Dockside Bar & Grill in Sag Harbor, which is now owned and operated by his sister. He has also worked at Robert’s in Water Mill and the former Sapore di Mare in Wainscott, as well as at Artisanal, Lever House, and the Waverly Inn in Manhattan.

Simple Appetizers

    Amy Kirwin will demonstrate how to make simple appetizers for summer entertaining at a free program at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton on Wednesday at noon. Samples will be passed around. Reservations must be made by calling the library, or online at myrml.org.

Farmers Markets

    Hooray, it’s that time again! The Sag Harbor Farmers Market will start the season on Saturday. It is held at Bay and Burke Streets from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

    The East Hampton market, in the parking lot of Nick & Toni’s restaurant on North Main Street, will have its seasonal premiere on Friday, May 27, also from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. That afternoon from 3 to 6 p.m., the Hayground School farmers market in Bridgehampton gets under way.

Argentinian Wine

    A wine dinner featuring Argentinean wines will be held tomorrow night at the Living Room restaurant at c/o the Maidstone inn in East Hampton. The event, co-hosted by Kelly Matis, the restaurant’s sommelier, and Jacques Franey of East Hampton’s Domaine Franey wine shop, will include an hors d’oeuvres reception followed by a four-course dinner, paired with different wines. Reservations have been strongly recommended. The cost will be $85, plus tax and gratuity.

And the Winners Are

    Long Island Restaurant News has announced the winners of its Finest Plates 2011 poll, which include three South Fork eateries. The Sea Grille at Gurney’s Inn was deemed the restaurant with the best view, while Phao won best Thai restaurant. Muse Restaurant and Aquatic Lounge took “best healthy restaurant.”

Pizza rustica, an Italian Eastertime specialty — a savory pie made with eggs and Italian meats and cheeses — is available this month at Food and Co. in East Hampton, where Pasquale’s Home­­made has set up shop and is offering all kinds of traditional homemade foods, including roast chicken and pizzas. Fans of “The Cake Boss,” the cable TV show about an Italian bakery in Hoboken, will have seen the crowds lining up for pizza rustica, a once-a-year treat, in a recent episode.

Spring Menu

    At Pierre’s restaurant in Bridgehampton, the springtime menu includes artichoke soup with bacon and creme fraiche, white asparagus with shallot vinaigrette, beef filet tartare, and rabbit. Pierre’s wine list now includes more than 360 choices. The choice of which Rosé de Provence to order for this year will be made soon, following a blind tasting by Pierre’s staff. Customers who would like to participate have been asked to contact the restaurant.

Staff Shuffle

    Carolyn Papetti, the longtime general manager of Cittanuova in East Hampton, will be taking the helm at the Grill on Pantigo. Her husband, Massimo Papetti, also known to regulars at Cittanuova, will take over as general manager there.

The Meaning of the Month

    Ah, April. Some may welcome this month as the real start of spring, or as National Poetry Month. But at Lucy’s Whey cheese shops in East Hampton and Manhattan, April means a celebration of National Grilled Cheese Month. Those on the stores’ e-mail list had a crack at winning a free grilled cheese sandwich as April began. Lucy’s Whey offers a rotating variety of grilled cheeses, including a sandwich made with melted Prairie Breeze cheddar, fig compote, and olive oil. The East Hampton store is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Eating Local

    The Sunset Beach Farm on North Haven will begin growing vegetables on an additional two acres in Amagansett, and will be signing up members for its community-supported agriculture program for the coming growing season. Information is on the farm’s Web site, at www.sunsetbeachfarm.net.

Almond’s Return

    Almond’s new space at the corner of Ocean Road and Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton will not only bring the popular French bistro back to the hamlet, but will provide space to seat 120, including at some sidewalk tables. Almond closed at its former site, at the western edge of Bridgehampton, last fall.

    Although the restaurant’s owners plan an update to the interior of the new space, they will maintain historic details such as the 100-year-old tin ceilings, and a hand-carved bar. The eatery is slated to reopen in May, serving dinner nightly, and will add lunch and brunch service later.

Blame It On . . .

    The bossa nova is a weekly thing at Fresno in East Hampton, where caipirinhas, a classic Brazilian cocktail, are served up along with music by Ludmilla beginning at 7 p.m.

For Passover

    Homemade gefilte fish and other items for Passover are available now at Stuart’s Seafood Market in Amagansett. Orders can be called in for baked goods, noodle kugel, and full custom dinners.

Thanks, From Astro’s

    Astro’s Pizza, long a mainstay of Amagansett’s Main Street — for 40 years, to be exact — is showing its gratitude to its customers and the community with a $20 takeout deal Sunday through Thursday. It includes a choice of two large pizzas, a large pizza and a baked ziti, a large pizza and a choice of one hot hero, or a large cheese pizza with one large salad and six garlic knots.

    At Felice’s Ristorante, the family’s sit-down eatery that is attached to the pizza shop, there is a $20 prix fixe that includes a choice of baked clams, salad, mozzarella sticks, or soup to start, followed by a choice of main course — chicken or veal francaise, piccata, parmigiana, or marsala, or fish of the day served francaise-style or broiled — plus dessert and a glass of wine.

Great Chefs Program

    The next presenter of a Great Chefs cooking class at the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor will be Peter Ambrose, the owner of Food for Forks, the catering division of the Seafood Shop in Wainscott.

    During the class, which begins at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday and costs $30, he will prepare a portobello mushroom and sun-dried tomato tapenade, served with a fontina cheese quesadilla, along with a main course of Chianti-braised short ribs with red-onion marmalade and chimichurri sauce, “smashed” potatoes, and oven-roasted asparagus. Dessert will be Grand Marnier-flambé doughnut holes over vanilla ice cream with raspberry chocolate sauce and mint. Wine will be served.

    Space is limited; reservations can be made in advance by calling the church.

Springs Juice Bar

    DJango’s Organics, a new natural foods shop on Three Mile Harbor Road in Springs, has opened a juice and smoothies bar. Among the featured ingredients is Green Vibrance, a concentrated “superfood” used to make protein drinks. Smoothies start at $6.99 and juices at $8.99.

Estia’s Mexican Specials

    A wintertime trip to Baja California Sur with his family has resulted in a number of new menu items prepared by Colin Ambrose, the chef and owner of Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor.

    Mexican specialties will be offered on Thursday and Sunday nights over the next couple of months, and all dishes will be under $15. First on the list this week will be a sweet corn and shrimp tamale, queso fondito with chorizo and warm flour tortillas, roasted duck tacos with rice, red beans, and guacamole, fish tacos with asparagus and sofrito rice, and potato rellenos with grilled steak and jack cheese. Tecate beers will be offered for $3.

Sake Tasting Dinner

    On Friday, April 22, Sen restaurant in Sag Harbor will have a sake tasting dinner from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Those who attend will get “sake 101” instruction and enjoy different types of the rice brew served with six courses of sashimi, dumplings, garlic steak, vegetable dishes, and dessert. The cost is $36 per person, plus tax and gratuity, and reservations have been highly recommended.

Gulf Coast Kitchen

    Beginning tomorrow, the Gulf Coast Kitchen by Robbin Haas at the Montauk Yacht Club will be open nightly for dinner, starting at 5:30. A spring prix fixe menu offered throughout this month includes choices of appetizers such as butternut squash gnocchi, clam chowder, and salads, and entrees such as grilled hanger steak, marinated organic herbed chicken, pan-seared loin of Berkshire pork, seared diver scallops, pan-seared skate, and roasted local cod. Dessert is also included.

Art and Dine at Maidstone

    The Living Room restaurant at c/o the Maidstone inn in East Hampton will feature Josh Gladstone, the artistic director of Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater, at its next Art and Dine dinner, to be held on Tuesday.

    Mr. Gladstone, who is an actor, producer, and director and one of the founders of the Hamptons Shakespeare Festival, will be interviewed by Dawn Watson, the features editor for the Press News Group.

    The evening will begin at 6:30 and include a two-course dinner served with a glass of wine. The cost is $36 per person plus tax and gratuity.

On Easter Sunday

    Easter Sunday brunch and dinner menus at numerous restaurants will feature fresh springtime fare this weekend.

    At the Southampton Publick House, a noon to 2:30 p.m. brunch will be followed by a three-course Easter dinner prix fixe for $25 plus tax and gratuity, served from 3 to 9 p.m. A la carte dishes will also be available. Entree choices will include leg of lamb, half of a roasted Long Island duck, pan-seared monkfish, shrimp tempura, and New York sirloin steak. Reservations have been recommended.

    The Easter Bunny will be hiding eggs around East Hampton Point, which will serve a brunch buffet from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The big, friendly rabbit will make an appearance to meet the kids. Reservations have been recommended.

    At the Montauk Yacht Club’s Gulf Coast Kitchen, Robbin Haas, the chef, will serve brunch from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for $38.95 per adult and $17.95 for children 7 to 13 years old. Those under 7 can eat for free. There will be a carving station with a roasted leg of lamb, alder-smoked Berkshire ham, and organic roasted turkey, as well as eggs and omelettes made to order, pancakes and waffles, a raw bar, salads, pastas, and ice cream sundaes, made how you like them, for dessert.

    An Italian-style Easter can be celebrated at Serafina in East Hampton. Starting at noon, the holiday additions to the regular menu will include warm artichoke carpaccio with baby shrimp, baby shrimp salad with asparagus, cannelloni beans, and cherry tomatoes, pappardelle pasta with lamb ragu, oven-roasted lamb chops, and roasted sea bass.

    Out in Montauk, the Shagwong will serve an Easter prix fixe for $25 between noon and 9 p.m. on Sunday.

    A new eatery in Sag Harbor, Page at 63 Main, which focuses on dishes from healthy, organic, local ingredients, will serve brunch and lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, followed by dinner, when a $30 three-course prix fixe will be among the choices. Prix fixe menu items include a grilled melon salad, carrot ginger soup, and Asian steamed buns filled with shitake mushrooms or braised pork belly, and, for entrees, vegan soba noodles with vegetables, braised monkfish steak, and pork tenderloin. Also on the menu as an Easter special will be brioche-crusted rack of lamb served with a sweet pea and pearl onion ragu, roasted garlic potato purée, and herb red-wine sauce.

    Cafe Max in East Hampton will offer lump crab meat, smoked Scottish salmon, fried calamari, and crab cakes as a la carte appetizers for Easter dinner. A three-course prix fixe — $28 for adults or $20 for those ages 13 and under — will be on Sunday’s menu as well. Entree choices will be penne pasta with chicken sausage, grilled local fish, grilled salmon with Dijon sauce, prime rib, and, for an extra $5, roast leg of lamb.

    Muse Restaurant and Aquatic Lounge will offer its “build your own” three-course, $24.95 prix fixe on Sunday evening starting at 5:30. Diners can select choices from the starter, main dish, and dessert menus.

Avanti Culinary Market

    The chef at Muse, Matthew Guiffrida, is creating takeout dishes that will be sold at the Avanti Culinary Market, a new shop in the Water Mill shopping complex where Muse is. Owned by Mike and Sandy DeGennarro of Southampton Wines in Water Mill and Long Wharf Wines in Sag Harbor, it will also offer prime meats and poultry, seafood, organic produce, artisanal cheeses, groceries, and other products, including vegetarian and gluten-free dishes.

Bostwick’s Is Opening

    Bostwick’s Chowder House in East Hampton opens for the season today at 11:30 a.m. The casual seafood spot for now will be serving Thursdays through Sundays, although it will be closed on Easter Sunday.

La Fondita

    La Fondita in Amagansett will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. today, and until 8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday, before closing on Sunday for some spring cleaning. It will reopen on May 4.

Wine Weekend

    As part of a “wine weekend,” the Living Room restaurant at c/o the Maidstone inn in East Hampton will have a Taste of Long Island wine dinner on Friday, April 29, at 7:30 p.m. Five courses will be paired with wines selected by the restaurant’s sommelier, Kelly Matis. The menu will include a charcuterie plate, Little Neck clams with chorizo and saffron broth, beef short-rib stroganoff, Long Island duck, and dessert. The cost is $85 per person, plus tax and gratuity, or $65 for Slow Food East End members, and reservations have been highly recommended as space is limited. Proceeds from a raffle at the dinner will support the Slow Food East End chapter.

    The special event weekend will include an April 30 Soil to Cellar event, featuring lectures by East End winemakers and sommeliers on everything from organic and biodynamic farming to grapes and wine collecting. The day will include a lunch and a cocktail reception with wines from participating vineyards.

    Rugosa restaurant in East Hampton will have a wine dinner on Friday, April 29, starting at 7 p.m. The menu will include duck mousse with red pepper mango salsa, tomato chutney, and ginger vinaigrette, seared arctic char with leeks, apple, cauliflower tapenade, and curry broth, braised veal cheek and seared veal tenderloin with eggplant caviar, Swiss chard ravioli, and polenta, and rhubarb cheesecake with strawberry-rhubarb sorbet. A different wine will be served with each course. The cost is $70 per person, plus tax and gratuity.

Awakenings

    The springtime list of restaurant reopenings now includes a rash of Montauk eateries. Starting next Thursday, Surfside Inn will serve dinner nightly and a Sunday brunch. Navy Beach, which opens on Friday, April 29, will serve dinner on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays as well as lunch on the weekends, to start. In honor of the season reopening and the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Navy Beach will offer drink specials on its opening weekend, including a Pimm’s Cup (British summer drink), sparkling cava, and sangria rosa, all $9.

    Also opening are two favorites at Gosman’s dock — Gosman’s restaurant, which opens for daily service (except Tuesdays) on Friday, April 29, and the Gosman’s clam bar, opening on April 30.

Wellness Challenge Approved

    The East Hampton Foundation for Wellness has joined with the Golden Pear Cafes and Gurney’s Inn to present vegan dishes that meet the nutritional guidelines of the foundation’s Wellness Challenge menus.

    New breakfast and lunch items at the Golden Pear cafes in Bridgehampton, Southampton, East Hampton, and Sag Harbor and items on the Gurney’s spa menu will be marked with the logo for the Wellness Challenge, a six-week healthy eating program sponsored by the foundation. The group’s spring Wellness Challenge, a free program open to those looking to lose weight, lower cholesterol, or reduce prescription drug use, begins on Monday. Information can be found on the group’s Web site, wfeh.org.

Cooking for Tibet

    Joseph Realmuto, the executive chef at Nick and Toni’s in East Hampton, will be cooking at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan next Thursday at the Tibet Fund’s 30 Years of Service to the Tibetan People event. He is among a dozen chefs invited by Eric Ripert, another East End resident and the chef at Le Bernardin, to prepare a four-course meal.

It’s a pity this is the only time of year we start to think about cranberries. Chances are, the only time any of us eat them is in their canned or jellied form, courtesy of Ocean Spray, at our Thanksgiving feasts.

This is a pity because fresh cranberries are delicious and healthful (they’re one of the super fruits, folks!) and can be incorporated in many more dishes and relishes all year round. They can also be found in some local bogs throughout the Walking Dunes on Napeague.

Cranberries are low, creeping evergreen shrubs or vines. They have small evergreen leaves with dark-pink flowers, then white berries, which ripen to red. Native Americans used cranberries as food, arrow-wound poultices, and dye for rugs and blankets. They mixed cranberries into “pemmican,” a dried, preserved meat mixture that was kept fresh longer by the acidic qualities of the berries.

They called the berries “sassamanash” and introduced them to the English settlers in Massachusetts, who incorporated them into the first Thanksgiving meals. A Revolutionary War veteran by the name of Henry Hall is credited with being the first to farm cranberries, in Dennis, Mass., around 1816.

Cranberries are a unique fruit. They can grow and survive only under special conditions, requiring an acid peat soil, adequate fresh water supply, sand, and an eight-month growing season. Contrary to popular belief, they do not grow in water; they grow on vines in impermeable beds layered with sand, peat, gravel, and clay. If the vines are undamaged, they can survive indefinitely. Some vines in Massachusetts are 150 years old.

The cranberry probably got its name from Dutch and German settlers who called it “craneberry.” When the vines bloom in late spring and the flowers’ pink petals twist back, they resemble the head and bill of a crane. Over time, the name was shortened to cranberry.

Most cranberries are grown in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, and Canada. Ninety-five percent of the crops are used for juice and jellies; only five percent is sold fresh.

In the 1800s, English visitors were impressed with the cranberry sauces served with various game and fowl. A visiting French delegate, however, had a different impression. In a memorandum dated 1808, he referred to “a most villainous of sauces, cranberry sauce, vulgarly called ‘cramberry’ sauce from the voracious way they eat it.”

Cranberries store well for a number of reasons. One is their high acidity, exceeded only by lemons and limes. Another is their very high content of phenolic compounds, some of which are antimicrobial and probably protect the fruit in its damp habitat. Many of these phenolic materials are also useful to us, some as antioxidants and others as antimicrobials.

A particular pigment, also found in blueberries, prevents bacteria from adhering to various tissues in the human body and so helps prevent urinary tract infections. Cranberries are also rich in vitamin C and pectin, which is why a barely cooked sauce gels almost immediately. They can even cause alcohol to gel when macerated in it.

We have learned that fresh and dried berries, as well as juice, are very good for you. Don’t bother with extracts and pills, however, as they don’t retain much nutritional value. Be aware also of the sugar content in juices, and try to find unsweetened, dried cranberries.

To enjoy fresh cranberries year round, freeze them on cookie sheets, then place them in plastic bags that keep them well frozen for at least nine months. Try them in apple crisps and pandowdies, chutneys, and sauces.

For the adventurous foragers among you, there will be the 11th Annual Cranberry and Dunes Hike on Nov. 20, a Saturday, at 10 a.m., brought to you by the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society. Meet at the end of Napeague Harbor Road, prepared with rubber boots and a bucket or plastic bag for your harvest of this lovely, healthy, late-fall fruit.

Jack Mazzola’s organic fair-trade coffee company has expanded into roomier quarters in Amagansett Square, making way for what the former daytime soap star turned coffee king hopes will become “the social club of Amagansett.” The space at the edge of Main Street formerly occupied by another Sylvester & Co. store has been transformed with what Mr. Mazzola calls a “vintage nautical” theme, in which driftwood, maps, and found objects accent the walls.

Mr. Mazzola’s own photo collages, which consist primarily of images of Montauk, are for sale, and shelf space is brimming with Jack’s Coffee mugs, hats, and other merchandise.

Nearly a decade ago, Mr. Mazzola patented his stir-brew coffee machine, which makes his Central American blends less bitter, as they are oxygenated while brewing, he said. He has committed himself to selling fair-trade coffee exclusively .

“It’s been very trendy, supporting sustainability,” he said during a flurry of excitement as workers moved the pieces of his store from its former digs in the nook beside Randy Lerner’s Meeting House restaurant. But Mr. Mazzola’s passion for sustainable living sprouted long before the trend, he said. To that end, he and Mr. Lerner, who owns the square, share a common vision.

Soups and sandwiches made in the kitchen of the Meeting House will be served to go at Jack’s, where increased counter space has made way for a sandwich press and what will be an organic juice bar.

The plan is to serve the juices “bottled in our own packaging.” A selection of oatmeal, millet, and other warm breakfasts will round out the morning menu, which already includes muffins, cookies, and pastries made by bakers from here and New York City.

Mr. Mazzola’s flagship store on Greenwich Avenue expanded first with satellite locations in other parts of Manhattan, and he set up shop in the square in July. He will oversee operations of his other stores from a loft office overlooking the floor of the Amagansett store.

From the moment he opened the first shop, “we were overwhelmed. It was surprising how welcoming the community was, and to discover customers and friends from New York,” who spend time on the South Fork in the summer, he said.

By next season, Mr. Mazzola hopes to have started his “Reggae Jams at Jack’s,” and other live shows and films. He has been in conversations with a D.J. from New York and promised that the Sunday afternoon sessions would include $5 lobster rolls from Stuart’s Seafood Market in Amagansett.

In the meantime, Mr. Mazzola is in something of a nesting phase, shifting around furniture and decorations, and planning for the future. “It was basically just a white canvas,” when he moved in, he said on Monday, gesturing to a cork board he had set up for community postings. An alcove that would soon be home to a selection of newspapers and magazines might also double as a stage for live entertainment.

By summer, a table he sees as a “fruit stand” might be transformed into a farmers marketplace — “we’ll use as much organic as we can,” he said.

With tables and counters to sip at and a new selection of foods, “what I look forward to in the future is foodies, musicians, first dates, fathers and sons after baseball games,” all meeting in what he calls “the nerve center” of Jack’s Coffee. Spending more time than ever here and at his house in Springs, “I’m considering this home,” he said.

   Things are looking up for sure when Saturdays bring the chance to visit a farmers market. Given the season, the Sag Harbor Farmers Winter Market will be held indoors weekly from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. through mid-May at 34 Bay Street, a building across from the Breakwater Yacht Club. Local vendors will be selling preserves, pastas, wine, cheese, baked good and other treats, and handcrafted gifts.