East End Eats: 95 School Street

It must be a bit nerve-racking for chefs, but the intense restaurant competition on the East End is a very good thing for customers.

Twenty years ago, even 15, the handful of mediocre eateries here had no incentive to improve their food because they were the only game in town. Diners grumbled, but it did them no good. Now, if the food is bad, word gets around quickly: Either it gets better fast or there's a For Rent sign in the window by the end of the season.

This volatile scene is interesting for a reviewer in that a bad meal one month doesn't necessarily mean a bad one the next - because chefs seem to move around like a river of quicksilver.

Good Food, Again

A case in point is 95 School Street: Good at first, it descended into a gully of pretentiously bad food last year from which it has, I am happy to report, emerged like Lazarus from the tomb. It is to be hoped that the present chef, Isaac Lucero, has dropped anchor for a while.

My other complaint about 95 School Street - the noise - has also been addressed to some extent. The acoustics are still as sharp as knives, but there isn't a blare of third-rate music any more. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We ate in the quieter room to the right of the bar and those of you who don't like noise should request a table here when you make a reservation.

Prices on the small but well-chosen menu are upper middle: $6 to $12 for appetizers, $16 to $29 for entrees. There is a well-priced choice from among nine diverse wines by the glass, including two Long Island wines, from $4.50 to $7.

Amazing Caesar

There is a prix fixe menu for $23 that includes an appetizer, entree, dessert, and coffee. Good, good value. Service is upbeat and efficient.

I always respond viscerally to the arrival of the breadbasket. If the bread is good, the omens are good for the meal. I think it's a throwback to my English childhood where, if you had the nerve to request bread at all, they would bring you a piece of sliced white bread neatly cut into quarters. Don't even ask about the food that followed.

Anyway, the excellent bread at 95 School Street bore out my theory. It was followed by a Caesar salad that must have had Caesar Cardini weeping tears of joy in his Tijuana grave. This is one Caesar salad you'll remember, I promise. I wouldn't swear to it, but it tasted as if there were coddled egg in it, as there should be, but in any event it was divine.

Delightful Antipasto

The endive, frisee, and warm goat cheese salad ($10) was almost as good and one of our guests, who had eaten there a couple of weeks earlier, had great things to say about the arugula salad with shaved Parmesan ($9).

But if you have the Caesar salad, that means you'll have to miss out on the antipasto plate. Antipasto. The word sends a chill down the spine, doesn't it? It means two green olives, two black olives, a slice of salami, a mouth-puckering artichoke heart, and three hot peppers pickled in acid.

Not at 95 School Street. Here you get delicate prosciutto, the sweetest red peppers, a first-class breseola, and possibly the best mozzarella I've ever tasted.

By the time the entrees arrived, we were all smiles.

The prettily presented calf's liver dish ($20) came with a meaty smoked bacon, excellent mashed potatoes, and a pile of tart balsamic onions to cut through the richness.

Dessert To Die For

Iacono's free-range chicken ($22) has always been on the menu here and it was as good as ever, though the diner who ordered it said that on an earlier occasion it had been even better.

The grilled strip steak ($29) was delicious, particularly in combination with its fruity red wine sauce, though there were quite a few gristly bits left on the edge of the plate at the end. The gratin potatoes arrived cool and were sent back, but they soon returned piping hot to much acclaim.

Do leave room for dessert. I'm lukewarm about them in general, but the banana Tatin here is enough to make one melt on the floor in a pool of caramelized bliss. And the petit pot au chocolat is that rare Hamptons creature, a chocolate dessert that does not threaten to kill you with sugar shock. It's just sweet enough to make it a dessert, which enhances the flavor of the chocolate.

I advise getting to 95 School Street before the summer rush.