North Fork Table and Inn

[Robin Meredith]

The North Fork Table and Inn opened in Southold last weekend in the space formerly occupied by Coeur Des Vignes. This is a bit of a milestone for the North Fork dining scene due to the involvement of husband and wife team Gerry Hayden (Amuse) and Claudia Fleming (Gramercy Tavern).

The dining room has been nicely renovated with a clean "Hamptons country" look. Servers are obviously well intentioned but a bit rough around the edges, as you would expect this early in the game. Music was overly loud and occasionally somewhat unusual (a brassy, jazzy version of the Nutcracker on Memorial Day weekend?).

We had the five course tasting menu ($68), which included:

*Fluke sashimi with grapefruit - very nice but almost too small to register on the palate. The a la carte portion included five pieces of fluke, the tasting menu portion just one - two might have been better.

*Asparagus risotto - this was great, full of rich green springtime flavors, prepared perfectly. In this case the portion could actually have been a bit smaller, but I'm not complaining.

*Soft shell crab with morels and sugar snap peas - a surprisingly complete failure given how good everything else was. The morels were completely flavorless, the peas extremely al dente, the breading mostly refused to adhere to the crab and when it did it overpowered the flavor of the main ingredient. A puzzling dish.

*Lamb chops with potato gratin and leeks(?) - two perfectly cooked rosy rib chops, a bit fattier and more flavorful than usual, wonderfully rich and creamy potato gratin, slightly undercooked, crunchy leeks (I think).

*Bonus dessert - panna cotta with rhubarb, strawberries, and berry sorbet - very nice well balanced fruit flavors. I almost never order panna cotta, so I can't really comment on that portion of the dish, but this was a nice bonus.

*Chocolate tart with coffee ice cream - great coffee ice cream with some intangible flavoring I coudn't pick out and a deep, richly flavored tart.

Wine list was limited - fewer than 20 choices, almost all local, with prices for 3 oz. and 6 oz. pours. When we inquired about bottle prices we were told to mutiply the 6 oz. glass by four. Obviously a work in progress.

All in all, a nice opening weekend performance. I probably wouldn't order the tasting menu again, but I think you could have a very nice meal here ordering off the a la carte menu (I'm looking forward to going back and getting more of that fluke!).

[Artichoke]

Andrea Strong reviewd North Fork Table and Inn restaurant in her weekly Strong Buzz today. As usual, the review includes some inane personal story of Andrea's and mentions yet another past boyfriend that is no longer, but with so few reviews of the place at the moment, its worth a read.

Andrea Strong's North Fork Review

[jeffperez62]

How is this place doing?

[reachej]

How is this place doing?

←

Seriously, someone must have been...

Maybe a source for a menu?

Their website isn't working, I was thinking about going but I'd like to have a little more of a specific idea of what I'm in store for...

[gingersweetiepie]

How is this place doing?

←

Seriously, someone must have been...

Maybe a source for a menu?

Their website isn't working, I was thinking about going but I'd like to have a little more of a specific idea of what I'm in store for...

←

The website is up but is pretty low-budget for now.

You can download the menu but you have to remove the pdf extension and open it was a word file. for some reason it was uploaded as ".doc.pdf".

[Robin Meredith]

Based on our lunch last Saturday, this place is operating at a very high level. We opted for the four course tasting menu (actually five, since it includes a pre-dessert), which is a terrific bargain at $40. The menu included:

*Pumpkin/squash soup with brussel sprouts, black trumpets, and chorizo

*Peekytoe crab cake with endive/celery root salad (maybe some truffle oil in the dressing, but very lightly done)

*Squab with Israeli couscous, red pepper, merguez sausage, and a few other things

*Some sort of custardy thing with concord grape sorbet (the pre-dessert), and

*Chocolate tart with salty chocolate ice cream.

Everything was very clean, straightforward, and well prepared. The squab in particular seemed like an exceptionally strong raw ingredient - my wife and I order squab whenever possible and we both thought it was one of the best examples we have tasted. The wine list has improved substantially, with well selected local bottlings supplemented by some nice international selections. We are regulars for lunch at Perry Street, and we both thought this was almost on that level from a price/value perspective (that applies specifically to the tasting menu - the a la carte selections probably wouldn't stack up as well).

Kudos to Hayden and Fleming for bringing this kind of experience to the North Fork.

Edited October 15, 2007 by Robin Meredith (log)

[daisy17]

The food standout of the weekend was the North Fork Table & Inn on Friday night. We loved it so much we went back for lunch today with the intention of focusing more on dessert. Friday night the place was packed, and Chris was an enthusiastic and attentive bartender who made sure we found seats at the bar. Unfortunately, and I've never had this happen to me before - I suppose my time was due with all the bar dining I do - we were seated next to the one of the most boorish and narcissistic people I've ever met. I wasn't about to let him ruin my meal although he seemed intent on it, because the food was just splendid and reflective of the season and locale. Starters were a local bean-tomato-microgreen-bacon salad with local feta cheese, and house smoked salmon over a corn cake - both absolutely beautiful. Entrees were local striped bass (over a fragrant artichoke barigoule and pesto) and veal. The prep on the veal was hearty and flavorful - oyster mushrooms, potatoes, perfectly crisp beans, truffle. Dessert was a caramelized peach tart, and today's desserts were a raspberry-vanilla meringue with raspberry sorbet and a goal milk sabayon, and a chocolate-caramel tart with caramel ice cream that I could have eaten by the gallon.