Caravan Food Shop Rolls Into Amagansett
Previously housed in a 1970s Shasta trailer parked at Bhumi Farms in East Hampton, Caravan, a purveyor of prepared foods of genuinely local provenance, opened down the road at 137 Main Street in Amagansett just in time for the July 4 weekend.
In keeping with its name and logo, a friendly looking beast dubbed the Caravanimal, Caravan’s offerings are “always moving, always evolving,” in the words of Lee Reitelman, who launched the shop with Alexandra Cohen and Deeva Green. “The menu changes every week, based on what the farmers are taking out of the ground, what the fishermen are catching, what the raw cheese guy is doing,” Mr. Reitelman said. “But the format stays relatively consistent.”
A recent week’s offerings included a zucchini parmesan frittata. “We call it a 24-hour frittata,” Mr. Reitelman said, “because for the most part, the ingredients are in the ground less than 24 hours before we make the frittata, and frequently the eggs” — from Iacono Farms in East Hampton — “are laid within that period, too.”
Their bluefish salad tartine is a hit, Mr. Reitelman said, and will be a mainstay through the summer. “We get it from a husband-and-wife team on the North Fork. He catches it, she smokes it, and then we treat it very simply, with olive oil, lemon juice, and some herbs. No mayo, no dairy.”
A terroir bowl is the signature dish, choices of which may be based on quinoa, wheatberries, chicories, or cabbage and kale, as in a recent week. “ ‘Terroir’ meaning the taste of a place, the way the soil and climate, and even the philosophy of the farmers, inflects the food,” Mr. Reitelman said. “The terroir bowls are meant to feature what is happening right now agriculturally on the East End.” Anything that is not from the South Fork, he said, such as quinoa or wheatberries, is included so that gluten-free options can be offered.
A compote might include rhubarb and strawberry. “Pretty soon,” he said, “we’re going to start getting wild blueberries, so we’ll do a blueberry compote and serve that with a gluten-free granola that we make.”
Sides, baked goods, and drinks are also on the menu. The cute, intimate space also offers raw produce and some of the partners’ favorite packaged foods, including spices, mustards, olive oils, and tinned mackerel and sardines.
Caravan is open Thursday through Monday from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. The lease runs through September, though “we’ve fallen in love with the space and the town,” Mr. Reitelman said, “so if we can make it work year-round, we’d like to.” Caravan, he said, “is born of a love of eating, a concern for the environment, a love of agriculture, a love of travel. Everything is about sharing that with other people.”