If you have a baby or wish to make one, spend the weekend at the North Fork Table & Inn in Southold, NY. In fact, if you merely wish to groan, gasp and exclaim, “Oh, baby!”, spend the weekend at the North Fork Table & Inn. You could just stop by for dinner, but then you’d miss a great night’s sleep and, most importantly, the morning after.
On any list of foodie fantasies, waking up to Claudia Fleming should rank high. The woman has skin like a Dove Soap model, a body like a yoga instructor and breakfast treats that provoke reactions in the unspeakable zones. To have her serve them in the early hours, as is the experience here is, well, a fantasy fulfilled. To have her then ask “Would you like some eggs?”, is well, better than my meager imagination could have come up with, especially when the egg man is Aureole and Amuse vet Gerry Hayden.
Hayden doesn’t whip up scrams, sunny sides or poached eggs for the matutinal feeding, rather, he makes arguably the best omelette on Long Island, formerly the best omelette on Manhattan Island. One day I had fingerlings, gruyere, chunks of bacon and ramps snuggled in Catapano Farm eggs. The next brought just-in asparagus spears. I won’t pick a favorite. I will be back for more.
Oh, yes, dinner is pretty great, too. In addition to Fleming and Hayden in the kitchen, there’s a rockstar front of house crew headed by wine director/innkeeper, Mike Mraz, who channels Flea by way of Josh Wesson, and his wife, Mary, who was arguably the best thing about service at Gramercy Tavern for quite a while. More on them and the family-friendly atmosphere in an upcoming dinner post.
In the meantime, I have a tidily wrapped leftover chive biscuit to eat while I ruminate on two of the most restful days I’ve spent so close to the City and so far from City life. www.northforktableandinn.com
Gray and Grizzled Food Fan 
April 17, 2007 at 2:27 am |
Nice blog!
March 4, 2008 at 4:16 am |
I miss Mike at Hearth. Glad to know he’s doing well out on LI.
July 23, 2008 at 9:07 pm |
[…] brought Gramercy Tavern level service off the island, out of the boroughs and all the way to the North Fork Table and Inn. Rather than make do with a shallow local talent pool, she trained and retrained a corps of […]