East End Eats: Expensive but Lovely

Topping Rose House

1 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike

Bridgehampton

537-0870

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days

The first time I reviewed the Topping Rose House I recall coming to the conclusion that it wasn’t so much a place you pop into for a good meal but rather a place for a dining experience, a special occasion. I returned two years ago and it was empty. I returned with some friends a few nights ago and it was empty again, save for one lone diner who was staying at the hotel. He sat across the grand, white, high-ceilinged dining room from us, reflected in the glow of his cellphone, looking like a snazzier version of an Edward Hopper painting.

The interior of Topping Rose House is beautiful. The ancient bones of the building have been preserved, but the walls have been jazzed up with modern art and there are huge light fixtures on the ceiling that cast a star-shaped glow. The floors are dark wood with muted rugs. There are black Windsor chairs in the bar dining room and a long burgundy leather banquette lining the larger dining room. The tiny bar is painted a marvelous, glossy teal.

This is probably the most expensive restaurant out here. The menu is very, very short, and the dining room closes at 9 p.m. on weekends and 8 during the week. “Ruh roh!” as the Jetsons’ dog Astro would say.

As soon as we were seated we were asked how everything was so far. Um . . . the napkins unfold nicely and the silverware has nice heft to it? The moderately priced bottle of Sancerre we ordered was not available, so we were offered another bottle for the same price, with samples poured first. Very nice!

A bread basket came to the table filled with absolutely exquisite breads: thin, salty breadsticks, hot brioche buns, and slices of dark olive and rosemary bread.

There are five appetizers, four of which are salads. We began our meal with a garden vegetable salad, an array of local cauliflower, and salad Lyonnaise. All portions are very small. The garden vegetable salad was a beautifully composed selection of Brussels sprouts leaves, pumpkin butter, parsnip chips, carrots, raw cranberries, cubes of celery root, and a few leaves of mache or baby spinach.

The array of local cauliflower was a confused variety of flavors. A few, small, chilled florets surrounded the rim of the plate. Some of them had a shaving of summer truffle, others had white anchovies draped over them. In the center was a tart salad of raw cauliflower and some orange and lemon segments. A soft-boiled quail’s egg sliced in half and a few capers garnished the whole. The summer truffle shavings lost the fight against the anchovies, capers, and lemon.

The salad Lyonnaise was delicious but such a small portion that I got panicky that I wouldn’t get a chance to try it before my guest wolfed it down. It was a dainty arrangement of some frisée leaves, a small cube of superbly crisped pork belly, a poached egg, which inexplicably had its white trimmed off, a few Kalamata olives, and some black dust on the plate — dehydrated Kalamata olives.

This restaurant is definitely into sand, soils, dusts, shards, petals, flurries, splinters, and other enhancements.

For main courses we ordered the pappardelle with braised lamb, a cod dish, and fluke. The pappardelle was very good, full of richly flavored and tender lamb, some strips of yellow and red peppers, broccoli rabe, and topped with grated ricotta salata.

The cod dish was a buttered, nicely salted piece of fish. It sat upon a few stems of broccoli rabe and had four carved balls of butternut squash topped with the tiniest pomme souffles you’ve ever seen. This was distressing to my guest, because she had ordered the dish with great anticipation over the pomme souffles. These were literally the size of wasabi peas, and there were only five of them, more like a garnish than an accompaniment to the cod. It was covered with another dust, this time tasting green, like dehydrated spinach, but it could have been more Kalamata olive sand.

The fluke dish was a dainty portion of super fresh, perfectly cooked fluke on top of a root vegetable barigoule. “Barigoule” usually means artichokes stuffed with meat and braised; this was more like a selection of braised root vegetables. There were carrots, more butternut squash balls (or “turned” squash, as the French would say), parsnips, turnips, Brussels sprouts, peppers, and little bits of house-made chorizo, which gave the dish some welcome smoky spice.

The service on the night of our visit was excellent. Our waiter, Kyle, was knowledgeable and fun and we had his undivided attention. The manager stopped by our table several times throughout our meal to see how we were doing. The background music kept us company.

Prices at Topping Rose House are very high; this could be the most expensive restaurant on the East End. Appetizers and salads are $17 to $24, pastas are $35 and $37, entrées are $41 to $85, and desserts are $12.

We tried two desserts, the gingerbread hazelnut semifreddo and apple fritters. The semifreddo was a lovely presentation, a dainty quenelle of semifreddo laid upon a landing strip of bittersweet chocolate ganache and a row of chopped, toasted hazelnuts. It was creamy and rich and topped with an excellent pumpkin seed brittle.

The apple fritters were pretty good, although one of them looked like a deep-fried oyster that had been discovered at the bottom of the Fryolator. Maybe I just don’t get the trend of doughnuts and fritters for dessert. They’re just too oily and heavy. The caramel sauce served with them was a perfect version, the sugar darkened just enough to achieve buttery flavor.

Along with the desserts we were presented with a little plate of passion fruit pate de fruits (jellies) and chocolate chip cookies. The jellies were delicious — concentrated with tart, tropical fruit flavor. I couldn’t tell you how the chocolate chip cookies were as they were the size of Yorkshire terrier treats and were eaten by my friends before I could try one.

With the check we were given individually wrapped, streusel-topped apple muffins to enjoy for breakfast the next day. A lovely touch.

Topping Rose House is open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There are barbecues on the weekends and excursions offered by the hotel — a trip to Widow’s Hole Oyster Farm and equestrian activity packages. Clearly it is trying hard to keep guests occupied, entertained, and sated. The empty dining room was somewhat alarming, but I think that for those looking for a special occasion destination and the 1-percenters, this is the place to go.