Fork It Over The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater-Mantesh Read online

  When he got back to me, he said his brother, no denizen of joints, was astonished by the brusqueness of their waiter. Instead of chatting endlessly, as L.A. waiters usually do, this fellow was uncomfortably precise.

  “What comes with this?” asked the brother, referring to the $6.65

  hamburger steak meal. (I believe the absence of a bun is what makes this hamburger a steak in the opinion of management.)

  “Vegetables,” was the reply.

  “Do I have a choice?”

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  “No.”

  Kiseda then presented his comprehensive report: “I figured out why it’s a joint. No maître d’. No menu. No tablecloth. No chandeliers. No froufrou of any kind. No reservations. No power table. No waiter named Tab or Sean or Daryl just passing through on the way to an Oscar. No credit cards. Just food.”

  I asked him what he had for dinner, and he said he had what he always had, the hamburger steak laced with chopped onions and accompanied with a few complimentary servings of coleslaw. “I don’t like coleslaw. But they have great coleslaw,” Kiseda said.

  Lest it seem that Big Nick’s and The Pantry are exactly alike, I should point out a few significant differences: Big Nick’s has a menu so large, so comprehensive, and so badly arranged that it is virtually impossible to understand. This is one reason why I stick to the burgers. The Pantry has no menu, just a few dozen items printed on the wall plus specials of the day scrawled on a blackboard in handwriting that’s nearly impossible to read.

  The walls of The Pantry are basically bare. Big Nick’s walls are blanketed with all manner of stuff, primarily celebrity photos of people you’ve never heard of. My favorite is a glamour shot of Madonna—a gal named Madonna Chavez, that is. The tables at The Pantry are Formica and the chairs wood. The booths at Big Nick’s are constructed of plywood.

  All this is pretty wonderful, but it has occurred to me that the people who run The Pantry and Big Nick’s might feel otherwise, harbor some long-repressed desire that their establishments be considered on a par with the restaurant elite. This seems not to be the case.

  Big Nick, of course, named his place Big Nick’s Burger Joint when he opened it twenty-eight years ago, and he says, “How can it be anything else? There’s writing on the wall, crazy people are inside scream-ing, it’s narrow and not comfortable to have a meal, you see the smoke when you come in the door—excuse me, but we are making hamburgers up there, you cannot a hundred percent hide the smoke and the grease.” David Hixon, one of the waiters at The Pantry, though not F O R K I T O V E R

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  for all of its seventy-one years, says, “It is a joint. I think a joint has a feeling of old-timeness, and a broad cross section of a clientele.” The phrase “broad cross section” rang an alarm with me, and he conceded that the customers who wander in aren’t always the most desirable, being that The Pantry is located “in the bowels of downtown L.A.” Indeed, joints do have a few drawbacks, but at a time when Americans claim to be coveting value, quality, and unpretentiousness, a joint fills every expectation, meets every requirement. Joints are exactly what we want, and they are exactly what they always were. To me, a good place to grab a meal need rise no higher than that.

  Food & Wine, october 1995

  H U N G R Y I N T H E H A M P T O N S

  At 5:30 p.m. on a Friday in early May, I am seated at a table under the stiff blue awning that shades the deck of Bostwick’s Seafood Grill. I order the “sun-dried” pizza, anticipating that it will, at the very least, be fresh. I am this restaurant’s first customer. The first ever.

  Before me, bobbing fetchingly in the Maidstone Marina, are six-figure sailboats owned by mariners who think “Land ho!” is something you cry out while closing a real estate deal. To the side, the Stars and Stripes snaps smartly in the cool, offshore breeze. My waitress, who could not be lovelier in shorts, T-shirt, and turquoise earrings, tells me she has just arrived in East Hampton, a village a hundred miles east of Manhattan, to begin a new life. It is something she has in common with Bostwick’s, which has had many other lives, many other names.

  The manager stops by to ask if everything is all right.

  “Perfect,” I reply, not exaggerating a bit.

  And yet . . .

  Somewhere, just over the horizon, economic thunderclouds gather.

  This is no fault of Bostwick’s. On the contrary. In my travels through the Hamptons over the course of two long weekends, there aren’t many meals I enjoy more than this sun-dried tomato, pesto, and goat-cheese pizza served beside a harbor on a delightful spring day.

  What darkens the promise of this and every other restaurant in the area is the location. The Hamptons, so sublimely beautiful in the 3 6

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  summer, so beloved by those possessing exquisite taste and excessive money, are a restaurant graveyard.

  Last year, Bostwick’s was the Little Rock Yacht Club. Before that, it was the Sea Wolf and before that the Silver Sea Horse. Just outside the village of East Hampton is Jackstraw’s Cafe, which is preparing for its grand opening. It is situated in a lovely old shingled house that once was the Spring Close House (for fine family dining) and then the Beach Plum (for downscale beach fare) and then the Ballpark (for “people with fishhooks in their cheeks,” I’m told), and then Violet’s (for elegant evenings out). Now, as Jackstraw’s Cafe, it will feature Southwestern cuisine. The decor is sort of New Mexican Gothic, a combination of old gilded art left over from Violet’s and new serapes brought in for Jackstraw’s. It’s how Dracula would decorate if he moved to Sante Fe.

  When winter arrives in the Hamptons, eating establishments vanish like beach umbrellas in a hurricane. “In the off-season, business stops like a heart attack,” says Robert Durkin, chef and co-owner of Karen Lee’s, in Bridgehampton.

  Despite that, the Hamptons have become one of the hottest restaurant regions in the country. Restaurateurs, many with successful establishments in Manhattan, are flocking here, so many that they deserve group rates on the Hampton Jitney. They are encouraged by a prevailing sense of economic optimism and a belief that their best customers—

  wealthy Manhattanites with summer homes—are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the same kind of food they’ve been eating all winter. Nearly thirty-five years ago, Henri Soule, the owner of Le Pavillon, pioneered this concept when he came to the Hamptons and opened one of the first great resort restaurants, the Hedges. Craig Claiborne, the legendary New York Times food editor and critic, now retired to East Hampton, says, “In those days, almost all the well-known restaurants in Manhattan closed their doors in the summer months. Soule thought all the fancy international crowd would follow him if he moved to the Hamptons, and he was right.”

  Claiborne recalls Soule’s establishment in the Hamptons as being F O R K I T O V E R

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  “very fancy, very elegant.” That is not the prevailing style today. For the most part, the new places are either of the Cal-Ital genre (sconces, uncluttered walls, blond-wood tables, terra-cotta floors) or of the storefront genre (smaller, darker, homier). The Honest Diner, operated by Jeff Salaway and Toni Ross—she being the daughter of the late Steve Ross, chairman of Time Warner—is much talked about, and the tough-est table to get on a Saturday night is at The Palm steak house. Battling for top honors as the place to be seen are: Sapore di Mare, owned by Pino Luongo of Manhattan’s Coco Pazzo; Della Femina and East Hampton Point, both owned by advertising icon Jerry Della Femina and operated by Drew Nieporent of Manhattan’s Montrachet; and Nick & Toni’s, also owned by Salaway and Ross.

  Rivalries, however fierce, are usually friendly—Nick & Toni’s sent flowers to Della Femina on opening night. The exception to this amia-bility is Luongo, who picks more fights than a sailor on shore leave.

  Earlier this year, he ran an ad across four columns of the East Hampton Star warning potential customers to beware of restaurants run by com-petitors with Italian-soun
ding last names who didn’t offer a “real Italian dining experience.”

  The challenge facing all restaurateurs is simple and obvious: Who’s going to be eating out in January and February? The village of East Hampton, which has a permanent population of only 1,500, has at least ten upscale restaurants. During July and August, it’s a certainty that every one will be filled on Saturday night. Fred Price, a manager of the 400-seat East Hampton Point, says, “There’ll be a Saturday night in the summer, I’m sure, when we’ll serve a thousand. And then we’re going to have to take the chef to the hospital.” The only year-round sure thing in the Hamptons is the patronage of one remarkable customer: Billy Joel. He is to dining in the Hamptons what George Washington was to sleeping in Bucks County. They can all boast, Billy Joel Ate Here.

  For my purposes, I define the Hamptons as beginning at Basilico, a restaurant in Southampton, and ending fifteen miles east, at the Honest Diner in Amagansett. I did not include Westhampton in my survey because it doesn’t feel like a Hamptons town to me. I did include Sag 3 8

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  Harbor, which is located five miles north of Route 27, the main artery of the Hamptons. Sag Harbor is too cute to leave out. The village by which all others are measured is East Hampton, one of the most bucolic spots in America. No, you do not have enough money to buy there.

  In two trips to the area, one in late April and the other in early May, I tried more than a dozen restaurants. A few times I ate only an appetizer. I spotted Eli Wallach (I think) at the Laundry, sat two tables from Princess Yasmin Khan (I was told) at The Palm, and saw Ralph Lauren (I’m certain) at Della Femina. Although I missed the grand opening of East Hampton Point, Billy Joel was there.

  “I’ll have the pepper steak,” I tell Big Al Cavagnaro, the owner, chef, and bartender of Cavagnaro’s Bar & Grill in East Hampton. To find the place, you drive around East Hampton until you see a neon-lit restaurant that doesn’t look like it belongs in East Hampton. That’s Cavagnaro’s, which has been around far longer than all the places that look as though they do belong. Al’s father opened for business in 1933, and Al, who lives in back, took over in 1951. Inside, regulars are drinking shots poured from a bottle of Imperial whiskey as big as a harbor buoy.

  A sign on the door says: try our lunch. Offered are hamburgers, corned beef, roast beef, and more. The special of the day is pepper steak.

  Al, a big old guy pushing eighty, looks at me suspiciously with his one good eye when I ask for the pepper steak.

  “Had that the day before yesterday,” he says.

  “So why’s the sign still there?” I ask.

  “Too lazy to take it down.”

  “I’ll take the hamburger.”

  “Didn’t grind any meat today.”

  “I’ll take anything you got.”

  “I got the spaghetti and meatballs I made yesterday.” I change my mind.

  Al tells me to come back the next day, he’ll have something for me to eat.

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  My first meal is at Southampton’s Basilico, attractive in a formulaic way: awning over the door, bottle of olive oil on every table. I order an appetizer that comes with fried onions and fried basil. The greasiness drives me out the door. I try another appetizer at the just-opened 95

  School Street in Bridgehampton. The place is comfortable and low-key, offering newspapers and magazines in the bar area. I order tuna carpaccio topped with grilled shrimp, an unusual combination of unlike seafoods. The silky tuna nicely compliments the crispy shrimp, although the dish is flawed by an excess of lemon juice. It turns the raw tuna into tuna ceviche.

  I complete my three-village, three-restaurant dinner at the Laundry, in East Hampton. I’m stunned when I walk in. I expect to see Hef and his Bunnies lounging on the black-vinyl boomerang-shaped couch wrapped around a freestanding brick fireplace. This place is such a seventies period piece it should be in the Smithsonian. Dinner is pretty good, but everything I order turns out to be either sweet or creamy; sweet vinaigrette on salad greens, mint-and-garlic sauce on very good snapper filets, raspberry puree on the strawberry shortcake.

  The Laundry, which has been around since 1980, qualifies as one of the Old Guard places to eat and be seen. This category is led by Bobby Van’s, in Bridgehampton, where Truman Capote went to drink and be seen. Also edging into the Old Guard division, although only around since 1989, is Karen Lee’s, which fulfills my expectations of what a neighborhood spot should be. Warm and inviting, dark and clubby, with an astonishingly large menu, it suffers only from the undue richness of its food. Worth the sacrifice is the meltingly tender Long Island duckling in blackberry sauce and the chocolate sorbet, richer than some hot fudge I’ve come across.

  Also well established, yet remaining one of the hot spots, is Luongo’s Sapore de Mare, located in the practically nonexistent hamlet of Wainscott. The restaurant has been around for six seasons and has earned a solid reputation for good food and surly service. I order a house specialty, pasta with sausage, peas, tomatoes, parmesan, and heavy cream, after my waitress proudly informs me that customers 4 0

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  come from all over to have it. Although it tastes as though it’s from the Upper East Side, not Tuscany, it’s generous and satisfying, far better than I expect from such an unlikely combination of ingredients.

  The house sparkling wine, Foss Marai Prosecco, is very good. So is the bread. So is the olive oil for dipping the bread. Service is just fine.

  I wonder why everything is so pleasant, and then I notice Pino Luongo isn’t around. That has to be it.

  “You know,” Big Al is saying a day later, “even in the old days we had a lot of good people out here: Andrew Mellon, Henry Ford, Jacqueline Onassis—she came in, had chicken and rice.” Sounds good, chicken and rice. At Big Al’s, everything sounds good, but I can’t get any of it. While Al’s pouring shots for his midday clientele, I poke my head into the kitchen. There’s a ten-burner Garland range in there, but nothing’s on it. Al would rather talk than cook.

  “Jackson Pollock used to come in with his girlfriend when his wife was in France,” Al says. “He’d drink Old Grand-Dad on the rocks. I’ll tell you, that girl was stacked.”

  Makes me think about pancakes, that story. Al says tomorrow, for sure, he’ll have a hamburger for me. I’ve been in a lot of restaurants where you can only eat what the cook wants you to eat, but this is different. You can only eat when the cook wants you to eat.

  The Honest Diner is supposed to represent the fifties. It does. The food could not be more bland. I have the luncheon special: an open-faced pot-roast sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy. On my table are salt, pepper, mustard, ketchup, A-1, and Tabasco. I’m tempted to use them all. Unfortunately, no condiment can save the coconut custard pie.

  Nick & Toni’s in East Hampton has the same owners but a different chef. The place is practically whitewashed, it’s so simple in design.

  I try two dishes, both made in a wood-burning pizza oven, and either one could qualify as the best food in the Hamptons. I must confess, however, that I walked in with Craig Claiborne, which is like walking into a casino with Frank Sinatra. Much attention is paid to us.

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  The first dish is a smoked-salmon pizza with mild red onions, a layer of mascarpone cheese, and a sprinkling of capers. Maybe this is what people eat on Sunday mornings on the Upper West Side of Rome. The second is a whole striped bass scored and quickly cooked in that 600-degree heat, then brushed with rosemary-scented olive oil. The skin crackles, the flesh is soft and moist. We drink Coulée de Serrant, the finest and longest-lived Chenin Blanc in the world, priced at $26.

  The same wine costs $65 at the American Hotel, in Sag Harbor, which is often praised for its stupendous wine list. After seeing the prices, I’m not impressed. Any restaurant can list wine. I prefer restaurants that
want to sell wine. The classic French cooking, however, is excellent. I have a sumptuous quail terrine infused with dabs of foie gras and succulent game hen crowned with a shortbread pastry crust, the sort of chicken potpie Escoffier’s mother must have made.

  The Maidstone Arms, in East Hampton, has much better wine prices, as well as wonderful luncheon specials. The prize is a 1961

  Château Latour, priced at about one-half Manhattan prices. Were I celebrating a million-dollar advance on my novel or the sale of my record company, as everyone in East Hampton does sooner or later, this would be my splurge.

  “Been married fifty-four years, I got a damn good wife,” Al is saying while my long-awaited hamburger cooks on his indoor grill.

  “She comes in, checks on me, makes sure the place is clean, I’m not raising too much hell.”

  Al is at his usual spot, the corner of the bar by the door. The burger is in back, unsupervised. I’m nervous. I don’t want it to burn. I know there will be no second chance.

  Al finally returns to the kitchen, yells out, “You want a hard roll?” I holler acceptance.

  “Good thing,” says one of the guys at the bar. “He’s going to give you a hard roll anyway.”

  The burger is thick, lean, and fresh, nicely served on a poppy-seed kaiser roll. With or without cheese, with or without fries, it costs five 4 2

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  bucks. “What am I going to do,” Al says, “add ten cents for this, four cents for that? Nobody wants that crap.” I take out my money, but Al says it’s on the house.

  I tell him I prefer to pay. That way I can protest the slow service by not leaving a tip.

  Service has always been problematic in the Hamptons. At least with Al, you get a lopsided grin while you’re waiting three days for your burger.

  On weekends in July and August, customers are routinely treated so rudely throughout the Hamptons that one veteran maître d’ says to me,